The Veroni-Chronicles
by Caccus
Summary: Veronica narrates her adventures traveling the Mojave Wasteland using an old-prewar tape recorder; chronicling her story of a Californian Free Spirit with stars in her eyes who met a Courier in need of an extra hand to make a delivery run down to New Vegas. This is her tale of everything she experienced with the man who would go on to become the Third Legend of the West.
1. Chapter 1

The sun was setting.

Seated atop a mountain of piled-up tools, pieces of tech and derelict robots, the Tinkerer fiddles with her tape recorder. She had just finished combing through this newest scrapyard, finally finding the last few pieces of spare parts that she needed to fix her recorder. And with her recorder repaired, she could complete her life's work. The corners of her eyes are wrinkled with the onset of middle-aged syndrome, but inside still shines a youthful light. Her mouth opens in a wide smile when she finally manages to fix the problem, and her recording machine once again begins clicking happily, ready to do its owner's bidding.

By her side, over a dozen tapes laid arranged neatly within the nicest pre-war suitcase the Tinkerer could find.

There was just one last thing to record.

The Tinkerer takes her last tape, and slots it into the recording machine. Under that setting sun, she brings the mic up to her lips and speaks.

VERONICA: Hi, it's me again, everyone. I know you've all been waiting a very long time for the conclusion to all of this, so I apologize. I had to make a trip as far up as Wyoming to find the right parts for my recorder. This is the Veroni-Chronicles. Ahem. This is episode zero. Tape number prologue. Whatever ya wanna call it.

VERONICA: Enter left. On the desiccated Highway 93 the two travellers journey. One, swaddled in layer upon layer of the soft cloths of a Brotherhood of Steel's scribe robes within which she hid a bevy of pre-war machining tools, strapped to as many bodyparts that the Scribe girl could manage. Her many implements clink against each other, ringing a merry jingle-jangle-jingle through the Mojave Wasteland. The scribe girl sings the song of her people, a…

The Tinkerer has to put the recorder down for a second to stifle a laugh.

VERONICA: She sings a horribly off-key "Johnny Guitar" with muffled murmurs where she forgot the words, hoping that one day she'll actually sing "Johnny Guitar" at the same time the song is actually on her companion's Pip-boy radio…

Still smiling, the Tinkerer closes her eyes, thinking back. It was almost like living it all over again.

VERONICA: …And the scribe girl has a hobby. Using an old-prewar tape recorder she found shortly before she met her companion, she details their adventures traveling the Mojave Wasteland. Chronicling her story. Their story. Of a naive young girl from California with stars in her eyes and her faithful companion, her faithful manservant, the man who would go on to become the Third Legend of the West.

This is the story of her privilege and honor to witness it all with him.

* * *

Begin Tape 1.

VERONICA: Laaaadies and gentlemen, you're listening to the adventures of me! Veronica Rentala Santangelo! Welcome to episode eight of The Veroni-chronicles!

VERONICA: From stage left, master and servant travel, West to East, sunrise to sunrest. The beautiful, radiant Veronica hides her pale skin from the harshness of the sun under a fashionable spiked hood. By her side, her trusty attendant strides, vigilantly scanning the mojave horizon, wary of any sign at all of a threat. Part mailman and part riot control protectron, the stalwart non-Ghoul manservant grouchily shuffles alongside his gorgeous master. The man's breathing is heavy; with every plodding, laborous step he struggles to resist his crippling addictions to Buffout(tm), moonshine and shooting people dead.

COURIER: Please stop.

Veronica gasps.

VERONICA: He speaks! We're in for a rare treat today, my faithful, projected viewers! You heard him just now- introducing my faithful mailman-manservant… the Adventurer of the Sands, the Vagabond of the Wastes...

Veronica leans into her recorder, dropping her voice to her best approximate of a baritone.

VERONICA: Some say, he roams the desert wearing chain-mail completely made-up of dozens of Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Caps-

The Courier glances over his shoulder, concerned.

COURIER: Christ, Veronica. You can't say that kind of thing about star caps out loud.

Veronica's voice drops lower and quieter, her lips quivering with emotion.

VERONICA: - and others rumor in hushed tones that he was trained in the mystical arts of kung-fu from an old man from the Shi. And that he had to kill his master in a duel to the death and he never said why...

Her trusty companion shakes his head in exasperation, the Ranger's Helmet slowly swiveling from left to right within the high collar of his armor's trench coat. But Veronica knew he was enjoying the attention. Veronica trots ahead, dancing to keep up pace with the mailman's stride, looking up to him and narrating his every move.

VERONICA: The Courier takes another sip of his own homemade concoction from his trusty Vault 13 flask. It is his only vice; his only salvation. Drinking old rainwater laced with vodka is the only way he can drive off the many demons that plague his troubled soul. Every night, his mistress worriedly listens to the disturbed mailman drinking himself to sleep at night, spitting out bits of rusty gutter pipe in between sips.

Veronica turns to an imaginary camera crew, her face grim and her tone now poised and professional.

VERONICA: Why is the star employee of the Mojave Express balancing his work and personal life with his crippling addiction to watered down vodka? Where is the Mojave Express' Human Resources' support while their best employee drinks himself blind, while on the job, nearly daily? How does he drink anything at all with a LAPD riot control mask surgically attached to his orbital sockets? Channel 5, KBTV News' Veronica Santangelo investigates tonight.

COURIER: [Intelligence 7] Weren't you were making radio show episodes with that recorder? You started off with 'from stage left'. That's a screenplay.

VERONICA: In yesterday's episode, the day had once again been saved by the skin of their teeth from a deadly ambush by a legendarily vicious gang of raiders known as the Vipers. Thanks to our scribe hero's razor-sharp wit and the plodding tenacity of her dutiful courier companion, the two emerge from the blood, gore and wreckage tired, injured, limping but most importantly- alive. Flushed with victory, her butler-slash-mailman steps to the side, sweeping his gorgeous, ravishing master off of his feet. The man whispers, what could have been a powerful, manly voice instead crawls diseased out of his ranger helm's voice modulator... like a mole rat from a sewer pipe.

VERONICA (GHOUL VOICE): Lovely Veronica! Watching you slay the leader of the legendary Vipers gang has made me fall in love with you all over again! Life without another minute without you is like a like without air! Let us run away together into the radioactive setting sun!

VERONICA (VERONICA VOICE): Alas, my faithful manservant! I love you as a brother, yet I could never love a man! If only you were a curvy, bodacious blonde with breasts you could brain a rat with! If only you were not a half-man, half riot-control protectron and half-potato!

COURIER: [Barter 80] Either you can talk or the radio does, Veronica. I can't concentrate with both on.

At this, Veronica skips ahead of her mailman companion, turning to stick a defiant finger onto the chest plate of the repurposed riot armor he was wearing.

VERONICA: [Failed] The Brotherhood -does not- negotiate with terrorists.

COURIER: Radio.

The delivery man flips the off-switch on his Pip-Boy's radio in one smooth, practiced motion. Just before he does, the first few notes of Veronica's favorite song start to peter out of the device before cutting short.

VERONICA: No! No! Wait! That was 'Johnny Guitar'! Waaait.

COURIER: Battery's running low anyways. We're going to make a stop at the 188 for another microfusion cell.

There is the sound of a click and the tape pauses here.

* * *

The two travelers ease themselves on to seats at the Slop & Shop shack-bar, served by a dusty-looking, smiling young lady with skin worn more wrinkly than her age would suggest. The only other patrons, a merchant couple at the other end of the bar, gawp at the intimidating figure that the Courier and his black armor cut.

Veronica stares with extreme interest at her companion once he sits down and reaches up to his helmet. But to her equally extreme disappointment, the man simply unclips the armored gas mask that made up the lower half of his Ranger helmet. All that can be seen of the delivery man's face is a healthy amount of stubble patching his chin, pursed and cracked lips and the beginnings of hair grown an inch too long poking out from the back of his head.

COURIER: A fuse cell, as many stimpacks as you've got and whatever's cheapest for food.

MICHELLE: Aw, sorry hun. We've been sold outta stims for weeks now. Caravans being attacked all over the damn desert; you know how it is.

The woman gives a soft, concerned smile.

MICHELLE: You're not running low?

COURIER: We've got one left. Thanks to someone.

The Courier turns to look at Veronica and she turns and looks up to the side trying to do her best whistle. They had gotten into an 'above-average' amount of raider encounters over the past few days. The Vipers, a few crazy convicts armed with dynamite and even some Great Khans along the way. But only some of those were her fault. Honest.

The armored deliveryman sighes.

COURIER: Just a microfusion cell and food for me and her, then. And please refill this as well.

MICHELLE: Of course!

Veronica watches the man reach into his duster and retrieve his battered Vault 13 flask, a souvenir from his one and only delivery trip to the legendary Vault Dweller's abode. The man tries to set his flask down on the bar before him, but the shop owner, Michelle, takes the flask from his hand instead, smiling extra-wide at the armored man before him. It was a typical look, one Veronica seen thrown the stoic man's way all the time. Dressing like a NCR veteran ranger got him that kind of respect and admiration no matter where he went.

VERONICA: And ladies love a man in uniform…

Veronica continues muttering while the shop owner kept on making doe-eyes at her companion. Watching the bees and the birds play their spring games made her annoyed and thirsty. The scribe girl reaches down to glance into her trusty money pouch. Empty. Curling her head back, she makes a great show of opening her many pouches and bemoaning the distinct lack of hundreds of caps within the cloth-sewn pockets.

VERONICA: Daaaad…

COURIER: You know you can afford water, Veronica.

VERONICA: But-

COURIER: 150 caps for food and supplies at the start of the trip. 300 for your specialty items at the end. You shouldn't have spent all your signing bonus at that dino shop.

VERONICA: But…

COURIER: Despite the amount of dangerous situations you've forced me to bail you out from in the last few days of travelling, I'm not your babysitter. I'm your boss.

Veronica leans forward and lays her head on the counter, pouting. She stares at the empty glass of nothing in front of her face, distinctly missing her favorite drink of flat soda mixed with purified water.

VERONICA: Fine…

She sees the armored man glance at her out of the corner of her eye and the scribe girl tries not to smile at what's to come. The Courier sighs a little, then raises his arm, pointing at the array of drink bottles on the shelf behind Michelle.

COURIER: Water and Sunset Sarsaparilla mix. Cold if you have it.

She was waiting for that. The Brotherhood Scribe girl leaps up and hugs the armored man tight as she could, the tools and powerfist she has hidden beneath her robes gives the man's Ranger armor a healthy amount of new scratches and dings.

VERONICA: Yes! You're the best new dad ever!

The Courier peels the girl off as lightly as he could.

COURIER: You did well with those Vipers yesterday. That's the only reason.

The two of the eat the rest of their meal in silence. One of them, at least. The mailman ate his plain noodles without complaint and nary a sound, but Veronica demolished her iguana and her flat soda drink as fast as she could, before turning to talk her companion's ear off.

VERONICA: So to get her back I hacked that giant cazador into her training sim! Watkins ended up scoring worst in our class that day! It. Was. Awesome. I swear you could hear her scream from outside the bunker. I know peed her pants.

COURIER: We should go, Veronica. Freeside's still far off.

VERONICA: Oh… oh yeah.

The two of them get off of their seats and the mailman turns to drop a few dozen caps into Michelle's outstretched hand.

It was several times more than he normally spent on food, Veronica thought, but it didn't seem like he minded. In the short two months that they had gotten to know each other, she could tell that at heart, he was a good man... robot… thing. Sometimes, she could swear she felt like she could see that mask change a little. Like when the Courier raised his head and his Ranger Mask takes on a lighter look, it almost seemed like he was smiling.

COURIER: We can get to the Kings' territory before sundown if we hurry. I don't want to get caught in Freeside after dark, not with only one stim left.

Veronica shuffles off behind her companion, carrying a full leather backpack stuffed with packages for the Mojave Express from the Hub to the NCR embassy in the Strip, where the items would be collated, organized and their recipients notified… provided some corrupt jerk-off NCR official didn't pocket any of the items first.

* * *

They travel the next few miles in silence. Soon the ruins of the pre-war city Henderson come into view, and the lights of the Vegas strip disappear behind a hedge of shattered buildings and wind-worn rubble. The two travelers are quickly immersed in the darkness of the shadows cast by the ruins around them.

COURIER: We'll land on the Strip the day after, and you should be able to get to Vault 21 there and buy the components you need.

VERONICA: ...Yeah. HEPA 20 filter cartridges, a reverse-pulse modulator and a differential pressure controller.

Veronica takes out a small, handwritten list, tapping the items on there with the back of her knuckles. Girls and shopping.

COURIER: I'm sure your 'family' needs those things badly.

VERNOICA: They're… tough. They'll get by.

COURIER: If it's urgent, I'll give you the rest of your contract budget after my delivery run is done. You can have it when we get to the Embassy. You don't have to go up so far as Jacobstown with me.

VERONICA: But… but I thought you needed help carrying. I'm a 'pack mule', remember?

Veronica does a goofy, wide smile and leans over and punches the Courier in the shoulder. But her smile fades when she sees his face.

COURIER: I can probably off-load most of my delivery at the NCR Embassy on the Strip. Then carry the rest.

She doesn't say anything. She only turns her head down, pulling her hood in closer. She could imagine the mailman looking over her, curious at her reaction. Great time to act like a kid, Santangelo. Just when you're getting fired. But she didn't know what else to say, she could only pout.

And she runs straight into his outstretched arm.

COURIER: Trouble.

VERONICA: Huh?

A man steps into view from behind the rubble. Mean and ugly. Moustache. Holding a weird looking laser pistol that was colored differently. The pistol was as mean and ugly as its owner, and not a little rusty looking. The gun would have been more threatening if it didn't look like he fixed it himself out of trash parts.

The Courier takes a step back, pulling his arms inside of his coat to cross them over his body, making his trench coat look more like a cape draped around his shoulders. Veronica noticed the man didn't immediately try to shoot the Courier for doing that. Meant he was dumb; the Courier now had his hands halfway closer to the weapons hung on the inside of the mailman's coat.

ALLEN MARKS: Strip.

VERONICA: He's more of a sex on a third date kind of guy. Me, though, I-

ALLEN: Tell your girlfriend to shut her whore mouth. Then strip.

COURIER: I just spent all of my cash. You want to kill a man over twelve caps and some mail from the Hub?

ALLEN: Fuck your money. I was listen' when your girlfriend was yammering a few miles back. Y'all should really keep your voices down, 'specially when you're walking and talking about 'wearing chain-mail made of nothing but Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Caps'.

The Courier gives Veronica a stern look from behind his red-lensed helmet. The scribe girl turns her head and whistles.

ALLEN: Sounds like to me you've got a good amount of them caps on ya. I myself only need a few more more. Which means that Sunset treasure's mine. Now hand them over like a good man and I'll let you two be on your way.

Allen Marks smiles, as if the whole affair was less literal highway robbery and more him collecting an inconvenient toll. Veronica sees this look, and she glances up at her companion. The Courier returns the glance, trading a single, unspoken word.

Liar.

COURIER: [Perception 6] You're not going to let us go.

Allen smiles wider.

ALLEN: No, I guess I won't.

The mailman reaches up to tap the breastplate of his hardened, carbon-fiber woven riot armor. It was more than the best armor that the NCR could produce. It was the stuff of legends.

COURIER: What I'm wearing here, this is 'Black Armor'. Does that mean anything to you?

ALLEN: Yeah, yeah. What's some fancy military armor supposed to impress?

VERONICA: Well, most people are, like, _super_ impressed. You're not though... which means you…

Veronica frowns and crosses her arms, glancing up and to the side. She makes her face light up and she snaps her fingers, pointing triumphantly at Allen Marks.

VERONICA: You must be so much smarter than them!

COURIER: Quiet, Veronica.

Allen reaches up with his fingers and whistles. From the shadows of the rubble all around them, raider after raider pops out from their hiding spots, aiming rifles and pistols if they have them and circling the scribe girl and the mailman with makeshift clubs and blades if they didn't. Those that were approaching him swung machetes and clubs made of pieces of scrap metal wrapped to wood planks, clinking them against pieces of rebar sticking out of the ground, raising a devilish tune before their hunt.

These men were vicious and hungry. They circled the two travelers like carrion birds. Smiling. Laughing. Out-right howling to the afternoon sun above.

ALLEN: I have two dozen hungry Jackals here. You're one man and I bet you're all talk anyway. If you pussies was so tough, why's Cee-sar kicking your ass all the way up the I-95?

VERONICA: Look who's talking. Have you ever jumped anything with less than five-to-one odds? But hey, I get it. Eighth graders can get big.

COURIER: Be quiet, Veronica!

ALLEN: Listen to your man, little girl. Tell him to be smart and maybe I won't give you to my boys after we're done with him.

Veronica steps forwards, taking off her hood. She slides her hand into her pneumatic fist, taking it off of the metal harness on her hip. The man only smiles, looking Veronica up and down as she gets closer. One of the Jackals whistles. Ugh. She felt like she needed a shower just from his gaze.

VERONICA: Ooh. Rapists and thieves. So is burning down hospitals like a day job or more of a hobby?

COURIER: Veronica!

ALLEN: That's right, little lady. We're the big baddies. Come closer and Allen Marks will show you just how big and bad we can get.

VERONICA: I'm going to make you choke on this power fist sideways. From up your-

She takes a fatal step.

And hears a bang and staggers. The world starts to spin. Felt like someone hit her over the head. Was it her freaking mailman-dad again? Tsk. She knows was acting stupid, but he was too protective. What a freaking helicopter parent…

What a… pain… she thinks.

Then darkness takes her.

Veronica collapses, but Allen hasn't moved a muscle. The blood trails from where the bullet grazed her skull, fired from one of the jackals surrounding them. The scribe girl hits the ground like a bag of cement.

COURIER: Veronica!

The Courier rushes forwards to his companion, kneeling by her side.

VERONICA: ...ugnh…

Allen Marks laughs and laughs. Like watching a girl get shot was the funniest damn thing he's seen today.

From on the ground and within the midst of blood and haze that clouds her vision, Veronica feels the touch of the Courier's thick leather gloves trace lightly over the back of her head. Her wound makes the touch of her companion's palm feel like agony, but there was comfort in the way he did it. God damn it, she thinks through the fog of pain. She screwed up again.

* * *

ALLEN: Give me all your star caps.

Allen approaches, smiling. His hand outstretched, a casual swagger to his step; his finger twitched dangerously on the trigger of the laser pistol. Two choices, the hand or the gun, both aimed at the armored package courier. But behind both was Death.

ALLEN: Better hurry, 'ranger boy'. I don't think the cute one here's going to last much longer.

The Courier glances upwards, twitching unnaturally at the name.

COURIER: I'm not a Ranger.

ALLEN: What?

COURIER: I'm nothing but a courier.

Allen laughs.

ALLEN: Fucking hell, so, what, you ain't even one of'em fancy NCR rangers, but you're bragging all about that 'Black Armor'?

The highwayman slaps his knee, almost wheezing. The Jackals all around jeer and mock him.

ALLEN: What, we supposed to be afraid you robbed one?

The Courier hangs his head and rises. As he does, his red lenses pass over Veronica on the ground, the blood trickling lightly from her head. The bleeding stopped at least. The mailman shifts back, his arms disappearing further into his duster. He turns to look at Allen Marks, red glowing lenses staring intently at the scumbag before him. Watching. Judging.

COURIER: No. I killed one.

The Courier shuffles inside of his trench coat and Allen Marks feels an unbidden jolt of fear. What was he-?

COURIER: [Terrifying Presence] And you're about to find out how.

Before Allen Marks can reply, an old military knife comes flying out of the mailman's trench coat. The pre-war knife catches the man in the shoulder and he falls, his laser pistol falling out of his hands. His scream is cut by the sound of the first of the bullets that come flying out of the hired Jackals around him. Those armed with melee weapons begin to charge.

The mailman was already sprinting for the nearest cover. There was a machete-armed Jackal right on his heels, wailing and taunting along with eight more of his buddies, the mob of raiders swinging little more than sharpened sticks. The Courier passes over a crack in the road... and leaves a primed grenade within it. All of them get only a few more steps before the grenade detonates, sending the armored deliveryman flying and his pursuers flying in pieces.

The Courier breakfalls, rolls and finds himself behind an upright pillar before his assailants can reach him with bullets. But his safety is short-lived. Already, the Jackals gang members are pinning him down with gunfire and the smarter ones begin shuffling through the ruins around him, finding better angles to flank him with. They may just be raiders, but they were experienced ones. This wouldn't be easy.

Allen Marks staggers to his feet, picking up his custom laser pistol with his left hand, the combat knife still buried up to the hilt in his right shoulder. He grunts with pain and lightly touches the knife handle sticking out of his body as if to pull it out, but he thinks better of it and instead raises his weapon.

ALLEN: You son of a fucking whore!

The man begins firing wildly into the broken pillar before him where the Courier is taking cover. Even the normally unflappable Courier flinches with shock when the laser beams from the man's pistol melt holes through the full two feet of concrete that he was cowering behind. That AEP7 was seriously juiced up.

A Jackal pops up from the second-story window of an office building at his flank and the Courier manages to get a snap-shot off with his own pistol, vacating the gang member's head with a bullet. The Jackal pirouetted back, a hole under his eye and the back of his crown blown outwards, looking like a gory skullcap. That kept the other Jackals' courage down, at least for a little while. But he couldn't get so lucky forever. The Courier fired another few shots at the buildings around him, keeping the flanking Jackals honest.

The Courier peeks out from behind the pillar to get a glimpse at Veronica's prone figure and almost eats an orange-colored laser to the face for his efforts. The man leans his head back against the centuries-old concrete, letting out a slow, even breath. Waiting.

Centuries-old bullets whiz by his helmet, getting closer and closer. And if they got to him, not even his black armor would be able to hold against eight different guns firing on him at once.

COURIER: On you now, kid.

* * *

Still on the ground, Veronica's eyes flutter open. What… ow, her head.

She tries to get up, tries to get her hand underneath herself to push herself to her feet, but she slips a bit, staying planted firmly on the ground. A moment later, she realizes it was for the best. There in front of her eyes were at least six pairs of men's legs, steadily marching forwards, applying an even, constant amount of fire on the pillar of concrete in the distance, chipping away at the upright structure bullet by bullet, piece by concrete piece.

How… she was shot, wasn't she? Veronica winced, balling her non-power-gloved hand into a fist. How did she…?

As she shifts, an empty syringe with a dial on it falls off of her shoulder, clattering on the cracked asphalt before her eyes.

His… last stimpack?

VERONICA: But… it was my fault…

Veronica reaches out, snatching the emptied stimpack and holding it fast to her chest. Her tears leave tracks through her dust-caked face from the corner of her eyes straight down to the tip of her chin.

* * *

The Courier ducks his head, as the very last of his cover starts to melt away. Was she going to make it in time?

The man flexes his fingers over the weathered pistol in his right hand and reaches into his coat with his left. He slides out the half-empty clip from his 10mm handgun while flicking That Gun's ammo cylinder open, checking to make sure the specialized revolver was full of bullets. It was almost time. He was finished reloading. Satisfied, he closes his eyes behind that black ranger's helm and waits. Even as bullets whiz past his face. Even as the very rock behind him burns away from Allen Mark's laser pistol.

COURIER: Come on, kid. You can do it.

* * *

Veronica clenches her hand, then gets to a knee.

She stands, staggering.

With her other sleeve, she wipes away her tears. It was just dust in her eyes.

VERONICA: Hey, ugliest!

All seven of the raiders firing on the Courier turned to look to at the source of the sound.

With a meteoric over-hand right, Veronica punches the red, white and grey out of the nearest Jackal's head, turning his skull into hamburger and turns his face inside-out. While pieces of the man's head shoots out in every direction at once, the raider's headless body goes flying like a ragdoll.

She beams, her smile showing both rows of teeth. She puts her bloodied gauntlet on her hip and poses.

VERONICA: Now you know who I'm talking about.

The headless body twitches.

* * *

Allen Mark gapes at the sight, then laboriously swings his entire body around, turning his customized laser pistol on Veronica, along with every other living raider. All of the Jackals are goaded to turn their guns on the scribe girl. Six, seven, eight men all aim their guns backwards, intent on sending the naive young girl from California back home in a body bag.

And what heroics does Veronica pull when faced with such odds?

She falls into a fetal position like a baby koala.

With as great effort as the combat knife that was still buried in his right shoulder would let him, Allen shifted his entire body, aiming Pew Pew with his left hand at the scribe girl that was slightly rolling around on the concrete ground right at his feet.

Allen could have pulled the trigger right then. At this range he might have even hit the bitch, shooting with his left. But something felt off.

Something… wasn't right.

Then it hits him. He wheels around, his eyes wide. Who was covering-

ALLEN: -the fucking mailman.

The Courier had stepped out from cover and was now in the middle of the street, his trench coat flapping in the dry Mojave wind. He raises his beaten, weathered 10mm Colt 6520 in his right hand and a heavily modified .223 pistol in the left. Just as he steps into view, all around him, the Jackals that had been flanking him through the surrounding buildings fall to the streets from the second story windows, a single bullet hole streaming blood from each of their heads. Their bodies fell like manna from heaven.

The mailman aims both guns, pulls both triggers and That Gun whines.

* * *

From the tape, there is only the sound of two different firearms being unloaded in rapid succession followed quickly by the yells, screams and pleads of men. The song of a dozen shell casings littering the road below can be heard just barely within the chaos; a soft rhythmic current beneath the cacophony. Overall, the violence lasted barely two seconds.

Then silence.

* * *

It was dusk now.

The two of them continued on. Their packs were now laden with whatever crap they could loot off of the corpse-strewn streets and their bodies just a bit worse for wear. Veronica couldn't help but notice how the deliveryman's gait was suffered by a persistent limp and that he was leaving behind a thin trail of blood that shadowed them as the pair trudged along the Mojave.

VERONICA: ...Thanks.

COURIER: I hired you. You're my responsibility.

VERONICA: I know you used your last stim on me, okay? Just… let me say this. For real. Thank you.

Veronica pulls her hood up. Damn it. She felt her eyes burning again. She would not let him see her cry.

VERONICA: And I know… I know today was my fault. And I know… that I've been nothing but a burden, ok?

She sniffled.

VERONICA: Just… let's just get to Vegas and I'll get out of your hair forever. You can even cut my pay, I don't care!

The two of them kept on walking, the only sound between them the clinking of metal and footsteps on shattered asphalt. Veronica hid her face in her food. She could feel the blush on her cheeks and the wetness in her eyes. The back of her head burned hot and she could barely see through her watery eyes. Damn. Damn it all.

Without a word, the Courier holds his pack bag out towards her. She looked at it confusedly.

COURIER: Consider this your docked pay.

Veronica takes the pack cautiously, hefting it onto her own shoulders with a slight oomph.

COURIER: Don't slow down on me, okay? We've got to make a lot of distance.

The Courier nodded his head up, up towards the distant lights of New Vegas. The Glittering City was already in view. The only thing between them and the Mecca of the Mojave was the great hedge of ruins and shantytowns that the locals called 'Freeside'.

COURIER: Tomorrow we've got to unload all this crap at the embassy. And the days after that… are up to you.

The delivery man shifts the rifle slung over his back and rubs his shoulder, enjoying his rare moment of unburden.

COURIER: Me, I could get used to a 'pack mule'.

Veronica says nothing, for once in her life. She pulls her hood tighter over her face. But she couldn't help but smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Freeside, Eastern Ruins

It was dark outside, but even darker here in the man's den. The smell of ammonia, burning plastic and human shit made her wince.

She watches the elderly man twist and writhe against the pile of rags he has stored up against this desperate corner of the ruins that he calls his home. It looks like the man hasn't slept, ate or drank anything at all for several days now. His eyes are wide and yellow with jaundice and his teeth are cracked, worn-down stubs from incessenting grinding and chattering.

Jet addiction. A year on the job and she's seen enough of this for a lifetime, now. It eats the body and the soul.

On a whim, she unholsters the shotgun on her back and without a sound, tucks the double-barrels under the man's chattering jaw. She runs her finger down the trigger, careful not to apply pressure… but seriously considering it. She would be doing him and everyone else a good deed, here. No more pain. No more living trapped in your own skull. No more endless cycles of drug induced hazes followed by desperate attacks on travellers to New Vegas… followed by more and more sleepless nights when his blood-flecked money ran out.

She just had to have the courage.

Red-lensed eyes from underneath a stoic, black riot control helmet burned a hole in the back of her head, watching. Judging her. She could feel them staring over her shoulder, watching everything that she did. She wheeled around, ready to fire her gun right into his stupid face. But there was nothing there. Just the empty triangle of the concrete arch that made the exit out, starlight bleeding through the portal into the filthy drug den. Sighing, the mercenary guard lowered her shotgun.

She clicked her tongue. Forget him. Julie would get mad.

The mercenary guard bit her lip and holstered her weapon.

"Alright, you lazy bum." The female mercenary kicks the man bodily in the ribs, 'waking' him up from whatever stupor he was in. "Get up!"

The man just mumbles in confusion and drools all over his bed of rotting rags.

"You wouldn't belieeeve your luck, old man." The mercenary guard squats, glaring down with disdain at the addict. "Not only do you steal from the Followers- the only fuckers in the entire wasteland that'll actually try to help little turds like you out, but Julie's actually making me go outta my way to bring you back."

The bum just smacks his lips and rolls over. It looks like he didn't even feel the kick.

"Oh ho? We're going to play this the hard way, are we?" The guard cracks her knuckles, a grin spreading on her face. "Awesome. I'm in a bad mood today."

There from the dilapidated ruins, only the sound of punches landings, grunts of effort and the odd moan of pain could be heard.

After a few minutes, the mercenary guard pops out of the ruins, her cargo in tow. Julie would yell at her for beating up her supposed rescue target. Not to mention tying the man up by his feet like a wild muthog and dragging him back, but Julie wasn't the one who had to touch the fucker with her bare hands. They always had fancy white, boiled gloves for that. She, on the other hand, felt like she caught something just _breathing _the air in the disgusting place the bum was holed up in.

Gah- More of them. The guard ducks behind a shattered concrete pillar and takes stock of the situation, slowly peeking around the edge, watching carefully with her cowboy's hat lowered over her eyes, shading her from the starlight above. She could see the shuffling figures of some of the drug addicts gathering around the corner of a centuries old store-front a couple hundred yards away. They were far away, but she should be careful. Guns were a fact of life here in Freeside- and some of these little turds might even have bullets.

Her eyes narrow as she tries to parse what the murderhobos were doing. It sounds like… they were planning something? A mugging? Was some other moron moving around these streets at this ungodly hour? Besides her, of course. The mercenary guard was just about to turn around take her cargo off in tow, scurrying away while the other bums are distracted, but something that rounds the corner catches her eye.

It was the soon-to-be unfortunate victims. Two travelers. A smaller, hooded figure and… at the sight of the second, taller one…

She breaks out into a smile. Her left hand twitches.

This day was turning out awesome.

* * *

Enter Tape 2

The tape clicks and plays. There could be heard from the recording the sounds of barely concealed whispers of excitement and plotting. Soft, but clearly audible, even to the tape recorder's smaller, less powerful mike.

UNKNOWN: *inaudible* -see the tall, black one? His gear sells for a-alot. Ts'good armor- that gun's nice too...

UNKNOWN 2: *rustling* I gots [sic] the girly with the shiny fist- you gots [sics] sumethin there?

UNKNOWN: Ey'eagh, this- *inaudible* -arpen' it all morning. I gut a rat in five minutes flat witit. Best-a-all, Billy Joe's gotta bat, too. He's flankin' from behind.

UNKNOWN 2: H-hey! Wait! That's mah spoon! You goddamn t-thief! Gimme that!

The scribe girl leans in to whisper to her companion as they stroll down the ruined main street of North Freeside; at the moment she was laden with several dozen pounds of mail and delivery parcels bound for New Vegas from the Hub. It was still a few miles to the King's territory, which meant at the moment, they were out in the open. They were helpless travelers… or so these bums thought.

VERONICA: [Perception 3] Do.. those guys realize we can hear them? Is that what they think whispering is?

COURIER: We'll handle them if they come. Don't worry.

VERONICA: I'm not worried. I'm just like, confused. I saw two of them fighting over who gets to hold the spoon. They know we have power fists and guns, right?

The mailman in the veteran ranger armor sighs, rubbing his neck with a heavily gloved hand. Though normally his helmet had a look of alert and urgency to them, at the moment his red lenses seemed to dim with dispassion.

COURIER: The locals can be confident.

The scribe girl glanced back to see a skeletally-skinny man try to dive out of sight into a roll, then overshoot his target and hit a trash can. He drops his bat in the attempt and the sound of the corked wood clattering against shattered concrete was deafening in the evening air.

The sound of a man trying to cover up his mistake by making meowing noises can be faintly heard in the distance, while he scampers under a flickering, nuclear-powered streetlight to retrieve his 'weapon'.

Veronica turns and points.

VERONICA: Now there's a guy who's-

COURIER: I heard.

A whistle.

That was the signal, it looked like. Vagrants and drug addicts began shuffling out of the nearby ruins and storefronts, hungry, vacant looks in their eyes. None of them holding weapons more dangerous than the aforementioned spoon.

Veronica watches Courier unholster an NCR-issue service rifle from inside his duster, leveling it smoothly at the first of the advancing throng. At this range and with that gun, he could kill half of them in a blink of an eye, but their attackers were either too high or too stupid to care. These idiots weren't the type to be scared off by a few headshots.

Seeing this, the mailman lowers his rifle.

The skinny man in the back lunges out from behind the burned out car, swinging his bat with a wide grin on his face.

The Courier wheels around, taking the bat swing straight to the face. The corked wood bounces harmlessly off of the steel and carbon-fiber shell of the veteran ranger helmet. Veronica watches the Courier move in with a grab that looked suspiciously like the fighting arts of the Shi. In a heartbeat, the mailman takes the bat-wielder down, stripping him of his weapon before turning in his hands and swinging it in a downwards arc himself and breaking the baseball bat on his face.

There is the sound of wood shattering and a sickening crunch. What's left of the skinny man's face is now evenly divided between being wrapped around the broken-end of the bat and splattered along the sidewalk next to his head. That gave the advancing mob of hobos something to give pause to.

COURIER: [Unarmed 65] Veronica.

VERONICA: Yo.

The mailman tosses the splintered, bloody piece of wood away, his red lenses glowing. And he raises his fists in a fighting stance.

COURIER: [Succeeded] Let's save ammo.

* * *

A few hours later...

She kicks open the door to the dingy, beat-up bar.

The three or four patrons in the bar look up from their dusty, half-broken seats and grimy drinks to pass the scribe girl a glance. Veronica raises her fists up high in victory, her mechanical right hand still dripping with blood and gore.

VERONICA: "Whoo hoo! I love punching! The perfect break between 'Work' and 'Drunk'!"

An eyeball slides off the knuckles of her power fist, bouncing off of her hood and leaving a red skidmark. The rest of the patrons ignore the strange creature to return the comfort of their drinks. Veronica struts over to the bar-counter, spinning herself onto the swivel seat and slamming what few caps she managed to loot off of the hordes of murderhobos outside that she just plowed her way through.

VERONICA: A vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.

The bartender looks at Veronica curiously, frowning. He then leans in to the scribe girl, staring her down.

JAMES GARRETT: The hell's a martini?

VERONICA: [Barter 15] It's like your face, after I punch it with my fist, but like a drink!

The bartender known as James Garrett slowly looks down from the scribe girl in his face to the money she just threw onto the counter. He flicks through the bloodstained caps that the Scribe girl has scattered all over his bar.

JAMES: [Failed] ...For this, I can get you a shot of Vodka and mix it with dishwater if you really want a cocktail.

VERONICA: Deal! But in the spy holotapes, martinis always have some kinda green ball mixed in. Got anything green?

The 'man' of Garrett twins glances down the length of the bar he's stationed at and fishes out something round and circular. He holds up an old, used electron charge pack, green with corrosion.

VERONICA: Perfect!

Slowly shaking his head, the bartender plops the used battery into the dirty water and vodka cocktail he's made, then jiggles the beer glass a little bit to mix up the cocktail. With an uneasy look, he plops the concoction down in front of the girl, who snatches it up greedily.

Veronica takes a swig-

Bleh. She brought her hand to her mouth and coughs and retches a little in shock and awe at her invention. Half of the sip she took came back up her throat right then and there. That drink definitely tastes like she punches alright. Steeling herself, she took another sip. This one stayed down, along with the taste of bile in her throat.

She felt so fucking cool right now.

Then, Veronica heard the slight sound of a _pfft _of laughter cut through. She looked up to see who was laughing.

Woah.

How did she not see this babe sooner?

It was a strawberry blonde, with a rustic, NCR hub farmgirl look to her. Her golden hair fell in tangles down her face, caught up in a loose bun at the back of her head. She had a rowdy, exciting, dangerous aura about her. Like driving without a seatbelt on, or Vodka Martinis. The strawberry blonde was dressed in the dark, drab colors of a mercenary guard, but she also had the red cross of the Followers of the Apocalypse emblazoned in a hastily sewn-on badge on her shoulder.

In other words, just her type.

Veronica puts on a sly grin and slides up next to the hot blonde.

VERONICA: [Cherchez Le Femme] Hey, 'Beautiful'.

HOT BLONDE: 'Beautiful'?

The smirk on the hot blonde's face grows. She raises a glass of brown liquid in her cup, her thick, fingerless leather gloves smothering the drink in her hands.

HOT BLONDE: How much is 'Beautiful', worth to you, cutie? Another whisky?

VERONICA: Hell yeah. Bartender, another one of what she's having. Unless you wanna try what I'm having. I invented it myself, it's called a vodka martini. What'supI'mVeronicabytheway.

The scribe girl raises a finger up at the bartender, ordering another drink and she could already see out of the corner of her eye, the Garrett's exasperated look and the frantic shaking and cutting motions with his hand the twin is making at the hot blonde. He must think she's broke. But he's dead wrong, 'cuz…

VERONICA: Don't worry, bartend. I got a 'wallet' walking in soon.

Veronica wheels around, spinning once more around the swivel until she was facing the man-Garrett, making finger-guns.

VERONICA: Trust me, he's loaded. Just put it on my tab.

Veronica turns back to the hot blonde, holds up a thumbs-up sign and grins.

HOT BLONDE: You got cash money walking in, huh? He a brother... or a boyfriend or something?

VERONICA: What, him? Naaaah. He's like… like a…

Veronica waves her hand a bit, thinking really hard for the right word to capture the essence of her deep, subtle and complex working relationship with the Courier that they developed together over the course of the last few weeks.

VERONICA: He's a man-servant.

_Pfft._ The Hot Blonde laughs again. Goddamn, this woman was cute. But also mature. And hot. Fuck.

The woman waves the bartend down, her drink glass already empty.

HOT BLONDE: It's alright, Garrett. I'll pay my own drinks until her 'wallet' gets here.

The bartender looked relieved and immediately started to pour out another whisky.

HOT BLONDE: So tell me more about this 'wallet' of yours.

VERONICA: Him? Oh. Um…

The scribe girl looks up, thinking back. Man-servant? Really, Veronica? And FedEx there would be walking in after her any minute now. Reflecting, Veronica sighs a bit in defeat, deciding to cut her losses with this gorgeous strawberry blonde while she still could.

VERONICA: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to show off. He's more like a boss to me. But like... a friend, too.

This got an eyebrow raise out of the strawberry blonde.

VERONICA: He hired me back at the Mojave Outpost, said he needed an extra pair of hands. I said 'I have an extra right here' and I slapped him on the back with my power fist.

Veronica laughed to herself, remembering when they first met. She nearly knocked him over the bar counter for the sake of that stupid pun. Luckily, he wasn't hurt, but he made her repair the giant dent in his armor right then and there.

VERONICA: And he took a chance on me, a starry eyed girl from California with big dreams and a pneumatic fist on her hip. He's been putting up with me ever since. I'm grateful.

HOT BLONDE: Oh? He sounds like quite the guy.

Veronica tilts her 'martini' in the glass, letting the rusted battery clink against the opposite walls of her cup.

VERONICA: Yeah, he is.

The two women sit there, deep in thought. Reminiscing.

The door to the Atomic Wrangler opens and a black armored, duster-wearing figure walks in, carrying the bloodied loot of everything that the Courier could flinch off of the blender of corpses they left a few blocks out. Veronica raises her head, holds up her hand and smiles and waves.

VERONICA: Hey! There he is-

A gunshot catches the Courier in the chest and knocks him off of his feet. Veronica sees the act happen a nanosecond before she felt the ringing pain of a shotgun blast going off right next to her unprotected ear. Through the fog of pain and the impending tinnitus, she looks up at the blonde mercenary, who now has her foot on the counter and her shotgun aimed squarely at the spot where the Courier once was. After catching the entire scatter on his chest plate, he slumped against the edge of the still-half ajar door, the red lenses of his helmet pointed downwards.

The blonde then leans her eye against the iron sights of her over/under shotgun, tilting it ever-so slightly up to aim with the second barrel underneath.

VERONICA: No!

Veronica leaps up and tackles the blonde, knocking the two of them to the ground. But the blonde managed to end up on top, swimming her way up to butt Veronica away with the end of her shotgun. The scribe girl raises her pneumatic fist, tears streaming down her face, ready to punch up and through the traitorous blonde, but the mercenary guard expertly slams the power fist away with the end of her over/under shotgun again, using it like a club.

The blonde rises to her feet and with a stomp, she plants her boot onto onto the forearm of Veronica's powerfist hand, sealing the weapon. Veronica can't help but cry out in discomfort. The blonde looks up and raises her gun, firing off another shot and knocking down the Courier with it again. The mailman was in the middle of getting back up on his feet when he was caught in the thick kevlar padding over his shoulder, knocking him back to the ground.

The mercenary guard then leaves Veronica, ignoring her completely to stride forwards and advance upon the helpless Courier. She cracks open her breech shotgun, cradling it in her elbow and loads in another two shots. The empty shell casings clink onto the floor, the only sound in the now utterly silent Atomic Wrangler as all of her few patrons look upon the commotion from behind cover.

The mercenary guard then flicks the reloaded shotgun back up into her hands and tucks the double barrels right underneath the Courier's chin- the only exposed, unarmored part of his body.

BITCH: You deserve this, you know.

The mailman lets out a low, wheezing cough.

COURIER: I know.

BITCH: I'm gonna hurt you worse than you hurt me, you shithead.

Veronica scrambles to her feet.

VERONICA: Stop! Please!

The mercenary guard twitches at the sound. It was a unnatural, animalistic-like jerk, like she was broken from a daze. Just how angry was this bitch?

VERONICA: I don't know what you think he's done to you… but you're wrong! You got the wrong guy, alright?!

BITCH: And what do you know, kid?

The mercenary guard turns to glare at Veronica, her blue eyes gleaming dangerously from in between the bangs of strawberry blonde over her face.

VERONICA: That guy's… stupid. And impolite! And he can spot a raider camp from two miles away but he can't tell shit for someone's feelings! I know that! But he… he would never do anything to hurt anyone that bad! Ever! I know him!

The mercenary holds her glare. She doesn't move her shotgun from under the Courier's chin. But her finger drifts off of the trigger. Veronica sighed a little, breathing easier.

COURIER: Rose… I'm going to come up now. Can I come up?

The mailman's voice comes out slow and even. Calm and peacefully. Like he was talking down a wild animal. 'Rose' turned to glare back down at the mailman under her boot. She didn't move a muscle. Then, an almost imperceptibly small nod.

Slowly, carefully, the Courier sidled his way back up into a sitting position. His veteran ranger armor was dented and shredded at places, but not cracked. It caught the shotgun blasts fully and spared him serious injury.

ROSE: You got a shitton of nerve, showing your face around me.

COURIER: Rose, I… didn't know you were around. I thought you would have moved on by now.

ROSE: So you were trying to avoid me?

Rose's eyes dim, and she glances down and to the side, looking dejected.

ROSE: Is that supposed to make me feel better?

COURIER: I… I'm sorry.

The Courier shifts his helmet to stare at Veronica. With a stiff, slow shrug of his shoulder that looked like he might have broken a rib, he gestures up at the strawberry blonde holding a gun to his neck.

COURIER: Rose… this is Veronica. Veronica… meet Rose of Sharon, Cassidy.

With a strained smile, Cass beams at the scribe girl, pulling her over/under away from the Courier's chin with a violent jerk. She cradles her shotgun with one arm and holds up her left hand, wiggling something out from just underneath the leather of her fingerless gloves with her now free right. It gleams and shines in the low light of the Atomic Wrangler.

It was a ring.

COURIER: My wife.


	3. Chapter 3

Mojave Outpost, two months ago.

A ceiling fan twirled slowly overhead, making clicking noises as its ancient mechanics ground against each other.

They had crossed through hell to get here. So much death, blood and dried salt streaks when their bodies were too dehydrated to make sweat with- just to get their caravan here. It was only forty days on the Long 15 from the Hub to the Mojave, but it felt more like the Israelites' forty years in the wilderness. With every death, their motley gang of mercenaries dwindled along with their supplies, ammos and strength of spirit. And through all of that suffering and sacrifice they were stopped dead when their end was just in sight.

It was just a military office. An NCR checkpoint; what could be more safe? Yet their enemy this time was greater than raiders and harder to kill than the toughest of deathclaws. Cassidy Caravans should have learned to watch out for their greatest obstacle yet- NCR bureaucracy.

"What?! Oh no. Hell no!" Cass roared, slamming the counter of that dilapidated outpost's repurposed bar. The creaking wood shuddered. "The Hell you're taking my caravan!"

"I didn't say that." The Major replied coolly. He flipped the pages of his newspaper without even looking up. "I just said you'd have to pay for a provisional caravan license, else we can't let you pass. Unfortunately, they're expensive, so yeah, we'd have to garnish most of your cargo."

"I filed for this caravan a year ago!" Cass was almost crying at this point. "I know the NCR's bureaucracy is shit, but even for you assholes, a whole year-!"

"Well, it says that there was a suit filed for encumbrance over the license of your caravan." Major Knight gave the Cassidy Caravan's file on his computer another look, before turning back to his newspaper. "Some kind of naming rights issue."

The Courier heard Cass exhale, a long stream of curses running under her breath as she did.

"McLafferty."

"The Crimson Caravans? Damn." Major Knight replied, sighing. "Yeah, Alice McLafferty pulls that trick a lot. You'll just have to wait until they can clear up the suit back in the Hub."

"So you know she's full of shit! Then let me through!" Cass swept her hand back out the door, where their long line of brahmin stood outside, waiting; their backs were laden with fresh fruit imported from local Hub farmers. It was this line of brahmin that Cass had hired him and a over dozen other mercenaries to escort on their way down to New Vegas. When they had left the Hub, all of the fruit was green, sour and hard as rocks. But by now, some of the fruit was beginning to smell sweet. In a few days it would be nothing more than rotting mush.

"All of my cargo is perishable! You're killing my caravan! Mom's caravan!" Cass gave a sort of desperate gasp. "Please!"

That was the first time the Courier had ever heard his employer say, 'Please'.

Major Knight's eyes turned hard at this. He looked up from his paper to stare Cass down for the first time since she stormed into the barracks office.

"If I let you through, then the next ones will be drug smugglers, human traffickers or worse- Legion." Major Knight sighed sympathetically, closing his eyes and rubbing his neck. He seemed to realize he was being difficult. "You seem like a good kid, but I'm sorry. The rules are clear."

The Courier half-expected his employer to scream or yell or explode at this. Maybe even do something stupid, like pull her gun. But instead, it looked like all the strength left her legs. She slumped down at the counter, defeated.

"Shit-! Shit!" Cass beat against the peeling linoleum. The Courier thought he saw tears, but when Cass lifted her head, her eyes were dry.

"Major..." The Courier spoke up, which gained him the attention of the Mojave Outpost's commanding officer.

"That reminds me, what's a Ranger vet doing this far up North? I thought you all were down in Baja, looking for some of Kimbell's pet rebels or something." Major Knight's eyes narrowed at the man clad in Black Armor, suspicious.

"...I've been sent up to the Mojave to join a mixed unit."

"A mixed unit, huh?" Major Knight huffed at this. "First I've heard of it."

"Sir. I'm going to have to ask that you allow this caravan through, Sir."

Cass looked up at that, confused.

"What…?"

"That so? Under whose authority? Yours?" Major Knight nodded up at the man in Ranger Armor before him. "There might be a giant statue of you and your kind outside the outpost right now, but that don't mean I'll fall down and worship you, nor let you bend the rules for your own sake."

The Major stood, staring at the Courier, challenging him. It was almost impressive. The commanding officer here was no pushover.

"I might be stuck at a desk job, but I take my job seriously. And I despise corruption. I will not let the caravan through without proper authorization." Major Knight's voice dropped down almost a hiss. "Not even for a Vet."

The Courier sighed at this.

"Under provision G43.1.1 of martial law, property of NCR soldiers can pass through military checkpoints up to two and a half times their annual pay. Rangers are grade E9- three-hundred and sixty-eight thousand, two-hundred NCD." The Courier nodded down at the list of the Cassidy Caravans' cargo. "Seven-hundred and fifty-thousand New California Dollars is my cargo allowance. It will cover it all."

"Hey-! You don't have to-!" Cass got up hurriedly but she was stuck in the chest by a sharp, gloved finger from the Courier and a slight twitch of his head.

Don't.

She stumbled back at the sharpness of the jab, surprised.

"That provision is to help soldiers relocate their families when they restation. It's not for commercial use." Major Knight tilted his head, eyeing the man in ranger armor before him with increasing suspicion. "Besides, last I heard the caravan was the woman's. Not yours."

The Courier reached around to grab Cass and pull her in. She gave a small yelp of surprise.

"It's mine as well. Rose of Sharon, Cassidy and I are married." The Courier said, lifting his helm up at the Major, his red lenses glowing.

"What?!" Cass shouted, causing the entire outpost to turn to stare at them.

"What?" The Major replied, just as incredulously.

"Isn't that right, Rose?" The Courier turned to face Cass, watching her carefully. The Major also turned to stare at Rose of Sharon Cassidy, his eyes as narrow as slits.

"I… It's..." Cass gaped, at a loss. A lock of blond hair fell over her face.

"Right?" The Courier said.

* * *

They came to a compromise.

Cassidy Caravans would be let through, but the Mojave Outpost would spend the night combing over their cargo to make sure there was nothing illegal or suspicious. They would be fine. It really was just all fruit that they were shipping, and Cass would have some of the guys drop off a box of fresh apples at the barracks. Just to butter them up a bit.

In the meantime…

"I'll need your Republic Army ID number so I can file for this requisition for transporting property over territory lines." Major Knight flipped through the cargo manifest that Cass had turned over. "What's your RAID number, enlisted?"

The Courier didn't answer, shuffling. The armored package courier seemed to shrink within himself.

"I asked you your ID number, son. Don't make me repeat myself."

There was a pregnant silence between the two.

"68. 310. 371." The Courier nodded up at the computer system. "It will verify."

"I'll make sure of that. We'll have you and your employees stay the night here while we conduct our inspection. Welcome to your new life in the Mojave…" Major Knight said, his brow furrowed with exasperation at the Cassidy Caravan's manifest file.

He looked up from his clipboard to stare at Cass and the Courier, one after the other. "...you two."

* * *

They were escorted to the soldier's barracks.

"Nice to see another Ranger around these parts." The Outpost's resident sniper, Ghost, led them through the maze of their barracks' beds, blazing a path in-between the dozens of soldiers their undressing for the night. "I've had about enough of picking bits o' crayon outta the bear cubs' teeth every night."

"Not the regulars' fault," The Courier replied. "If God didn't want them to eat crayons, he wouldn't have made them all those pretty colors."

"Ha! You really are a Ranger, huh?"

"So I've been told."

"Tsk. And I'm stuck here with'em as a sniper like some glorified 'first-grader'." Her tone turned sour. So Ghost was the kind of Ranger to denigrate the regular army's First Recon sniper team with that name. An ugly attitude with newer, cockier NCR Rangers. But pervasive.

She huffed, her tone of voice drawing annoyed glances from the regular soldiers around her. Something told the Courier that the albino woman didn't have many friends around here. "Stuck here babysittin' while the whole Mojave's gone to hell."

"I think you should enjoy this peace while it lasts." The Courier turned to look over at the bustling barracks, scanning over the rowdy, laughing soldiers as they jostled each other, joking, drinking and playing as many hands of cards they could before it was curfew. "It's what we're fighting for."

Ranger Ghost stayed silent at that, glancing at the armored mailman to her side. He noticed her look up and down his 'Black Armor' with a flash of greed in her eyes. And once she glanced back up, she noticed that he noticed.

Her face flushed pink against her snow-white skin and she looked away.

"If you say so, vet."

The Courier noticed Cass had been bumped from behind by a big, burly soldier as they moved through the barracks. The man turned around to apologize, but on looking upon who he hit, he nudged his friend and nodded up at them . They gave knowing, unpleasant leers.

So word had gotten around. Damn.

"By the way, you don't sound all that old." Ranger Ghost tossed out casually at her 'fellow' NCR ranger. "Your voice may be modulated, but I can tell... you don't sound a day over thirty-five. Don't vets have to serve for twenty?"

"Youthful body. It's a blessing."

"Is it now?" The albino woman gave an unpleasant smirk, her red eyes gleaming. "Ah. We're here."

The snow-white ranger pushed open the doors to a small, but private room with a single mattress in the center. It was dimly lit by only a small, single-battery lamp that that been set off to the side. No windows or amenities- it looked like a converted storage closet.

"The Major thinks you two must be tired." Ranger Ghost said. "So he prepared this for you two. Quiet. Far away."

"Thank him for us." The Courier said, nodding at Ghost.

"It's very private." Ranger Ghost's smirk grew. "That's not a problem, is it?"

Cass, frowning, pushed the Courier into their shared room. The strawberry-blonde gave Ghost one last scowl before she slammed the door in her face.

* * *

The armored mailman took a broom from off the floor and set it up against the door, making sure no one could get in. He sort of twitched towards Cass, uncomfortable. What was she thinking?

"I'm sorry. This was the only thing I could think of." The Courier trudged over to the very corner of the closet, falling against where the walls met to slump down and rest. "I'll sleep over here. Take the mattress."

"...Hey." Cass said, gentler with the man than she had ever been in the weeks she'd been employing him. "Thank you."

"My job is to escort you from the Hub to the Mojave. That includes helping you get through the front gate."

"Not just for this." Cass took her hat off, letting her strawberry blond hair hang loose over her face. "For everything you've done in the last few weeks. Really."

He had been hired by her as almost an afterthought. She had already put together a full team of a dozen armed men, but none of them as scruffy or weathered as this man in the armored riot gear when the caravan leader approached him at the bar. A lone package courier, already on his way to the Mojave was hired by a new caravan leader to make a few extra caps on the side as some extra muscle to guard some fruit.

She had a good feeling about him, she said.

If only she knew what she would be putting them all through.

It would be the start of a month-long ordeal to fight off every type of creature under the sun on their way to the Mojave. Every day was another war. One day it would be geckos, and the next, bloodthirsty bandits. The day after that might be a plague of bloatflies. The NCR was truly stretched thin, their reach extending far beyond their grasp; parts of California were essentially lawless now, including the Long-15 that they had to carve their bloody way through. How many men and beasts did they lay low these last forty days? How many of their own did they bury?

All for some fruit. What a joke.

With a sort of stagger, Cass walked over until she was standing over the slumped Courier. The low light shrouded her face. The only thing he could see were her eyes, blue and grey like stones under a stream. She fell to her knees until she was eye level with him. Her blue eyes looked to the side to glance at the slit of light that made up the crack under their door, and the shifting shadows that flickered there every now and then.

"You know those horny assholes are right outside our door. Listening. They'll think something's fucked if… if… we don't."

"Rose… you're not drunk, right?"

"Me? Nah. I want to remember this." She reached up and brought her hand to the Courier's face. "Take off your helmet."

The Ranger's Helmet fell, clattering against the peeling linoleum floor. And she kissed him, bringing him down.

* * *

It was night.

Major Amadeus Knight stayed up late, smoking a cigarette under the pale, fluorescent lights of the Mojave Outpost's front office. Before him was his work computer and on the screen was the open file on their most recent visitor.

"Ranger ID 68-310-371…" He checked and double-checked the number, but it stayed valid no matter how many times he tried. File, check. Graduation date, check. Service history, letter to letter, had been redacted, but that wasn't anything new.

He'll be damned. That strange man really was a ranger. That said… Major Knight's eyes narrowed at the graduation date from Nisene Redwoods Ranger Academy; 2273. That was only seven years ago. It was unspoken tradition that Rangers who wore the Black Armor earned it after no less than twenty years of service. Of course, that meant those who were colloquially called 'Ranger Veterans' were nearly all old men or ghouls.

Major Knight's cigarette burned down to a stub, but he ignored it and the glowing ash falling down on his shirt, thinking.

Was this man a special case? Some extraordinarily distinguished Ranger, recognized early on in their service? Even though regular Rangers were already incredible, down to every last man and women, he supposed it was possible. Among the Army, Rangers stood tall. Was this a man who walked tall amongst even Rangers? But not once had he personally heard of anything like that ever happening.

Major Knight took the stub out of his mouth, flicking it into a clean ashtray on his desk.

Well, it didn't seem like it would do him or the NCR much more good keeping the two locked up here. Even if the whole marriage thing with that woman was horseshit, he actually did sympathize with the girl. He didn't like that damn McLafferty gaming the law any more than he liked people breaking it. And if he could let them by on a technicality...

Sighing, Major Knight stamped the transit approval for the cargo of fruit, bound for the smaller cities along the Mojave; Goodsprings, Nipton then Novac. Less worse of his two options. His conscience was clean.

Major Knight got up, stretched, and walked over to the next room where the barracks were, looking to turn into his own private quarters for the night. With great disappointment he noticed a least a full squad's worth of regular soldiers huddled up next to the private room he had set up for the 'married couple'. They were passing money to each other and judging by the grins on the faces of the men and the blush on the cheeks of the women, the two of them were at least committing to the act.

Damn it. His conscience was clean, but that mattress wouldn't be. He resolved to have Ghost be the one to burn it, since she was the one to suggest this stupid idea to him.

Major Knight started stomping over to the evasdropping soldiers, ready to yell their ears off.

* * *

Begin Tape 3.

CASS: An' that was how we got hitched.

VERONICA: Seriously? That's how you did it?

Cass took another sip of whisky, nodding. Veronica turned from the strawberry blonde in front of her to gape at the armored mailman sitting at the bar, drinking his own glass of water from the opened mouth slot on his helmet.

COURIER: It's true.

Veronica took a step back, away the destroyed bar, shocked. She stumbled dramatically onto the seat at one of the few circular tables left upright. Sighing, she set her recorder down on the bar, and turned it off for once. The clicking from the tape recorder stopped.

* * *

Pause Tape 3.

And she slumped at the table in despair.

"God!" Veronica put her hands on her hand, clutching her hood around her head. "That's too cute! It's unreal! Why do beautiful people also get amazing, romantic lives?! It's not fair! I want my own candlelit night of passion! I want my own gorgeous blonde! I want…"

And she ranted and ranted for a good ten minutes straight.

* * *

Resume Tape 3.

Only when she had sufficiently wound herself down, not without a few episodes of dramatic crying into Cass' chest, did Veronica turn her recorder back on again. She swept her recorder's microphone towards the Courier, a disdainful look in the scribe girl's eyes.

COURIER: Is it my turn to speak now?

VERONICA: Just shut up and talk.

All three of them took a second to process that. A wire shorted out in the Atomic Wrangler and another flickering bulb in the ceiling died.

COURIER: What?

VERONICA: What?

Cass set her glass of whisky down, the dangerous look in her eyes coming back. It was the look she had when she shot her estranged husband twice.

CASS: Oh, this should be good. I want to hear why I woke up the next day- butt-naked and alone. No note, no message, no nothing. The only thing that was there was this thing on my finger.

Cass pulled her ring out from off of her hand, admiring the shine of the brass. She set the ring down on the bar's counter, tapping the warm metal against the splintered wood. Veronica's head swiveled from facing Cass to facing the Courier, her mouth open and agape.

VERONICA: Waaah?

COURIER: … It's true. I abandoned Rose there to leave first. That morning was the same day when I hired you from the Outpost's bar to help me get through the Mojave. We left just a few hours before she woke up.

CASS: This stupid piece of brass is the only reason why you didn't get a third round of buckshot upside your head.

She spun the ring like a top, making a shining, translucent ball on the Wranger's countertop.

COURIER: I have no defense.

CASS: Bullshit.

Cass drummed her fingers on the wood of the bar.

CASS: When we were on the road, you wanted to set up a schedule of rotating piss-breaks with lookouts. You don't take your morning dump before you have a plan. So out with it. Why?

COURIER: What I did that night… was risky. For all of us. I shouldn't have gotten you involved.

CASS: I deserve to know.

Sighing, Cass looked away from her still-spinning ring, picking her glass of whisky from above like a claw, swirling it, watching the dirty ice slowly sink into her amber-colored drink.

CASS: Or do you hate me so much that you were glad to be rid of me? I get it. I'm no blushing housewife.

COURIER: No one would hate being married to you, Rose.

CASS: Fuck you.

COURIER: Rose… I was going to find you, after I finished this job. It'd pay enough for the two of us for a long, long time.

CASS: Liar.

Her voice was barely a whisper. But she had calmed down. The spots on her cheek were blooming again, and Veronica wasn't totally sure it was the whisky doing it.

COURIER: But I did something extremely dangerous at the Outpost and I had to be sure that the heat was off of me before I came to find you. I can't have you wrapped up with my own problems.

CASS: Bad shit tracks you like your own shadow, hubby. If you run all around the desert until your problems go away, I'd be all shriveled and fucked by the time you found me.

COURIER: I'd still come.

CASS: Pfft.

Cass couldn't help but laugh at that. She chuckled, putting her drink up against her cheek, resting the cool glass against her red face. And the two of them kept talking, catching up on lost time. Sitting behind them, Veronica quietly turned the tape recorder off. This wasn't the place. Not for her tape recorder. Or… for her.

And she slipped out of the front door.

* * *

Pause Tape 3.

Once they were finished, they went looking for her. She wasn't far. They soon spotted her outside, alone.

Veronica was sitting by herself just around the block, on the corner of that dilapidated curbside under the white light of a nuclear-powered street lamp. Looks like it wasn't so bad, this side of Freeside. She only had to put out the headless body of one druggie to get the others to leave her alone.

Cass grinned, and nodded her head out at the scribe girl sitting by herself.

"Go on." Cass egged the Courier on. "Run from your wife to a younger girl."

"I'll be back soon." The Courier promised. "...and I'll keep in better touch."

"You better." Cass said, lowering her head until all he could see under the rim of her hat was her steel-blue eyes. Or I'll kill you, those eyes said, and he believed her.

"Are you going back to the Hub?"

"Me? Nah. I already sold everything from the caravan, paid the guys, everything. Cassidy Caravans for now, is on hold. I'm hankering to make a dent in all these caps that're burning a hole in my pocket at the bars around here."

"You take care, Rose."

"You fucking take care of yourself." Cass tilted her head, watching her husband carefully. "I have a feeling you're going to get yourself wrapped up in a whole bunch of stupid again."

"It'll all work out."

"Hmm."

Cass looked out at the lonely scribe girl that was sitting by herself.

"By now, that girl has probably known you for as long as I have." Cass said, teasing. "Don't marry her, too, alright?"

"I doubt that's going to happen." The Courier replied, on the defensive for once.

"She relies on you, you know." Cass pushed on his chest playfully. "You Lady-Killer, you."

"She's not that way."

"She might not love you, but she adores you. That counts." She tilted her head up. " Which means if I find out you've done anything to hurt that lil thing…"

"Got it."

"Alright, then get out of here, you bum." Cass gave a wicked grin. "Go make your beautiful wife some money."

"Hold on." The Courier said, walking towards Cass, reaching up to his helmet.

"Hm?" Cass backed up slowly. "What are you- Hey-!"

* * *

Resume Tape 3.

COURIER: Veronica. Are you ready to go?

VERONICA: Woah! Scared me! Just gimme a sec.

There was a ring of scrap electronics and batteries lying around her. She had a good dozen tools out and was just finishing putting the fastening screws back on her recorder. It looked bulkier now, with a number of new buttons and instructable ports, marked only with nameless symbols scribbled on masking tape.

COURIER: We'll be headed into New Vegas next. Let me give you your payment for the credit check.

VERONICA: Nice! Can I play slots?

COURIER: Buy your family's air filtration parts first.

VERONICA: Fine…

Veronica sulked at that, as if saving the entire Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel from a slow, certain death from carbon dioxide asphyxiation was a bothersome chore. Veronica looked up, and tilted her head.

VERONICA: Hey, your mouth port is loose.

COURIER: [Lady Killer] Is it?

The Courier readjusted it, fastening it securely to the facemask on his helm. And as he did, Veronica swore she could see a glimpse of a smile from behind that mask.

COURIER: Let's go.

VERONICA: Let's go!

* * *

It was nearly the end of the day. No more caravans passed through the Mojave Outpost. Not too many at all for the entire day, in fact. The rate of supply trains coming into the Mojave was slowly dwindling.

Word was, Caesar of the Legion's namesake had passed away. Some reports from their scouts said it through illness, a swelling of the brain. Other reports said some kind of factional infighting within the Legion itself. The NCR head honchos were quick to celebrate, even mailing out bottles of congratulatory wine to all officers as 'thanks'. But Major Knight's bottle of wine still laid there in his personal safe, untouched.

Whatever Caesar's Legion was, it was anything but a pushover. He just hoped that whoever replaced Caesar wasn't even worse. The old bones in his legs told him that his cushy desk job might not be so cushy for much longer.

Something about all of this felt wrong. Like the world was knocked out of course. He wouldn't dare drink to that, not with this dark wind in the air.

Then, the doors to the outpost opened, and that dark wind rushed in.

Black. All black.

Four Rangers, all in shining, new, pitch-black armor, slipped into the outpost. They moved so quickly and suddenly that Major Knight had to resist the urge to go for his gun. These were friendlies, he had to remind himself.

"What- What are you- Identify yourself!" Major Knight nearly yelled. The four Rangers looked at him, but didn't reply. They only circled around the desk, checking every corner of the room and clearing it; staring down the scared receptionists and regular soldiers with their hands on their firearms at all times.

One of them turned, and Major Knight could see a white bear's skull painted on their shoulders, along with twelve tallies underneath.

"That was an order, enlisted." Major Knight growled. There was a clear military hierarchy that even Veteran Rangers had to obey, under the laws of the Ranger Unification Treaty and the whole reason they had those two statues outside to begin with. But somehow… it felt like these men didn't belong.

One of the Veteran Rangers turned to stare at the Major, red eyes burning from under the black, painted helm fastened over it.

"Four months ago, an NCR Ranger's ID was used to requisition a property transfer." That one finally spoke. Major Knight was taken aback, but only for a moment when he heard the Ranger's voice- it was a woman. "We believe he may have been armored in a veteran ranger's gear, possibly working as a package courier for the Mojave Express."

He knew who they were talking about. That Ranger had disappeared the night he showed up, but since everything else was still valid, the Major still waved his 'wife' on through, kicking and screaming and fuming as she was. What a piece of work.

"Lots of people come through these parts," Major Knight replied, playing dumb. Somehow he didn't feel like dropping everything he knew to these Black Rangers at the tip of a hat. "You'll have to be more specific."

"RAID 68-310-371."

That was it. He had no choice but to reply truthfully, then.

"Yeah, I remember him. What about him?"

"Did the man say which way he was going? Do you have any information on that Ranger's whereabouts now?"

"He was with his 'wife' and they were running a caravan." Major Knight answered, choosing his words carefully. "Judging by the hell the girl raised the morning after they arrived though, seems like he left the outpost without her."

Two of the Black Rangers looked at each other at the mention of Cass. Apparently, that was new information.

Shit. He made a mistake.

"A wife? What was her name? Where was she headed?"

Major Knight bit his lip at this. Of course he remembered the girl's name. Hard to forget her, or the mess she made of the Outpost that day after, when she had discovered her 'husband' had up and disappeared early in the morning. Pretty obvious which direction she went, too.

But...

"Her name, Enlisted, was 'Go Fuck Yourself'."

The Veteran Ranger leaned in at this menacingly, her hand running up and down the engraved revolver she had at her waist.

"Last name," Major Knight continued, "'With a Cactus'."

The two NCR soldiers stared each other down, their eyes linked as if by magnetism. Human eyes stared fearlessly back into glowing red lenses.

It was the Ranger who turned away first.

"Let's go. He can't have gotten far." And then she and the rest of the bear-skulled veteran rangers slipped out of the outpost, as quietly as they came.

Those weren't soldiers, Major Knight realized, long after they had left. They were killers. God help them all if that was what the NCR was becoming.

* * *

It was almost pitch-black outside the Mojave Outpost. The sun had set quickly in the short time that they were inside. The NCR's assassination team turned to look at each other. They had been comrades on over a dozen outings by now. They knew what to do next.

"Wait." The four members of the Hit Squad turned around at this.

Ranger Ghost came walking down the planks from the roof of the barracks to greet them. "I want to join you."

"We're not the kind of unit you sign up for, dusted." The female Veteran Ranger seemingly leered at her junior Ranger. "We're no Bears. We follow the old rules. Desert Ranger rules."

"I know who's your mark. I know his 'wife's'' name, where she was going, and what she looked like. I remember it all." Ranger Ghost gave another unpleasant look. This one wasn't her normal look of smugness, though. It was rage. 'That Ranger was 'Ohlone', wasn't he?"

The Hit Squad glanced at each other at the name.

Ohlone. The ghost traitor. The official NCR reports of the ill-fated Ranger class of 2273 speculated that shortly before graduation, they were set upon by a deep-territory Legion Cohort and wiped out to a man, including their late Chief Hanlon, who had taken it upon himself to instruct that class personally that cursed year.

But no bodies of this supposed Legion party were ever found, nor were there any signs of wounds inflicted by the Legion's more tribal weapons upon the bodies of the soon-to-be Rangers. Only the corpses of eleven promising young men and women had been found, and their beloved Chief; their lives and services cut brutally short.

No, the rumors were, that the Ranger Class of '73 was done in by the missing 12th Ranger, whose body was never found. Ohlone. It was common knowledge among Rangers both young and old that he alone had killed every one of his classmates, and Chief Hanlon, in a single bloody night before vanishing into the wind, never to be heard of again.

"I knew something was off when I saw the Major's file on him. Class of 2273. I should have realized it then." Ranger Ghost grit her teeth, her eyes burning with barely restrained anger. "The Rangers' Arnold freaking Benedict just walks in through our front door and I showed him a fucking room! Shit!"

"What was the wife's name?" The female Ranger Assassin asked, leaning in towards Ghost.

"Hers? She was called something weird. Rose of Sharon Cassidy." Ghost closed her eyes, trying to remember all of the details of when the Traitor Ranger and his supposed wife passed through their checkpoint. "She was running with 'Ohlone' under her own caravan, called Cassidy Caravans, headed to New Vegas."

"You know a lot about Ohlone." The Veteran Ranger replied, glacing at her comrades and jerking her head. "This is all now classified information. Have you told anyone else about 'Ohlone' passing through the Mojave Outpost?"

"No! Never." Ranger Ghost gripped her rifle, her grin growing and growing. "All I want is my own shot. Just give me a hundred yards of clear line of sight and I'll put the dog down for good."

"That's good." The Veteran Ranger replied, holding her hand out to shake.

Ranger Ghost beamed, taking it.

And she was shot twice in the back with a silenced rifle by the Veteran Ranger behind her.

The albino woman crumpled to the ground, bullets rattling around in her ribcage before she could even say a word. She tried to scream or yell, or say anything at all, but her throat was full of blood. The Ranger tried to get to her feet, propping herself on her hands. The Veteran Ranger who took her hand pulled out her own silenced .22 pistol and put one right in the back of Ghost's head. There was a quiet thud and Ghost fell as flat on the ground as if she was struck. But she wasn't getting back up.

"We'll drop her off a few miles in the desert and let the coyotes do the rest." The Veteran Ranger said, her compatriots reaching down to whisk away the albino ranger's body before anyone else happened on the bloody scene.

As for 'Ohlone'...

The Veteran Ranger known only as 'Reaper' narrowed her eyes. You're next.


	4. Chapter 4

Begin Tape 4

New Vegas was sacred ground. A sprawling gathering of temples to Consumerism and Greed and Short-Sightedness and Impulsiveness and Lust and Loss. It was all the things wrong and so many things right about the world. Twin rows of casinos, each taller and more garish than the last, rose to the skies, forming the pillars to this new Babylon; flanking a pure whitestone boulevard jam-packed with people. So many beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes all laughing as they drifted from excess to excess without a care in the world.

Veronica trotted out into the middle of the boulevard, treading lightly over the well-kept grass. She jumped into the clear pool of water that was running down the middle of New Vegas. The shining, glittering path of water formed a great reflective pool; shops and shows and restaurants of every type rubbed shoulders and fought for your every cap along the sides.

COURIER: What do you think?

VERONICA: I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto…

COURIER: Toto?

VERONICA: It's… from an old holotape.

The Courier shuffled a bit, putting his hands on his hips. The tilt of his helmet made him look as if he had a grin.

COURIER: You like it then?

VERONICA: I've no idea… but I can't wait to find out.

Ah. She forgot.

VERONICA: Uh, after we deliver these packages and all. Let's get to the embassy first.

Veronica clambered back up from the pool, dutifully returning to her employer's side. She was a responsible adult with a job that needed to be done, mh-hm. Work first and fun later.

COURIER: It's fine. Go.

VERONICA: Huh?

COURIER: Enjoy yourself. I can drop off most of the packages myself.

The armored mailman stepped forwards, a hefty amount of caps in his fist. He dropped them all into Veronica's cupped hands.

VERONICA: Really?! Awesome!

COURIER: But I need you to do something for me first.

The Courier reached into his pocket and fished out a small package. With both hands he carefully undid the electrical paper that was wrapping the item.

COURIER: I need you to put the contents of this, into this. Can you do it?

The Courier pulled out a hefty-looking cylinder in one hand and a much smaller-looking trinket in the other.

Veronica looked down. She recognized the cylinder instantly. A portable electromagnetic radiation generator. Pretty standard stuff, she handled them all the time back in the Hidden Valley bunker. But on the left...the bauble was something else. Something platinum? No, silver. It shone under the harsh Mojave sun, gleaming in the mid-morning light.

VERONICA: Pretty…

She had the bauble opened in a flash and she oooh'd and ahhh'd at the sophisticated electronics within, the glowing, shining city around her forgotten entirely in lieu of the technological marvel within her hands.

VERONICA: Wow! Are these solid state transistors?!

COURIER: Can you?

VERONICA: Yeah, no problem. I used to make minatures of these into caps, then leave them lying around bars close to Hidden Valley. Always hilarious to watch one of them go into a jukebox.

She made an exploding motion with her hands, then cackled. A little more evil than she meant to come off, she bet.

COURIER: Appreciate it.

Veronica saluted.

VERONICA: Veronica, M.D. is on the case.

While she worked, the Courier put a hand on her shoulder.

COURIER: Veronica… I'll give you the rest of your payment now. Go have fun.

The Courier hefted a heavy bag of caps before handing it over to Veronica and she passed the bauble back to him; tin coins for a silver trinket, changing hands.

VERONICA: Huh? Oh, uh… ok.

Veronica looked down at the caps. Then back up with a wide, wide grin.

VERONICA: Hey, do you want to find me after you're done? You'd kill it at poker!

COURIER: Yeah, I'll come. Just go on ahead.

* * *

The armored deliveryman watched as the scribe girl took the heavy bag of caps, trailing off to the nearest casino, smiling and waving goodbye. The Courier waved his own hand lightly, as if to shoo her off.

The man then turned back and looked up. All the way up. Above him loomed the Lucky 38, the gleam of this Jewel in the Desert, shining as bright and as clean as the day it was built. Somewhere, within that mausoleum… lurked the most important delivery recipient of his life.

The shadow of the Lucky 38 began to cross over him and he resigned himself to his fate. The mailman took his first strides onto the ring of steps leading up towards the tower. He started to catch looks from passersby as he ascended the stairs to the front gates of the Lucky 38; no man has tread these steps for hundreds of years.

The higher he rose, the more bystanders stopped dead in their tracks to watch him.

He was almost all the way up and by then there was a crowd forming, gawping at the stranger they saw approaching the Lucky 38's front doors. There was a hefty superstition around Mr. House's palace. None dared to tread on Mr. House's property; all visitors to New Vegas knew to give the empty, dead casino a wide berth.

The Courier stopped in front of twin doors thrice his size. He stood, hands in his pockets, his eye lenses glowing red from under his riot gear helmet.

And the mailman raised the silver bauble from his pocket, presenting it before the front door. There was a glint of light as a security camera scanned the Courier and his silver bauble carefully. With a great creaking sound, those doors opened; a gust of dust and musty old air rushing out to greet the armored mailman. There was a collective gasp from the onlookers as they witnessed the Lucky 38 open its doors to invite the man in.

And without a word, he strode in.

* * *

The machine rattled, the tumblers falling and it revealed to Veronica another set of cherries.

VERONICA: Wooo!

The slots jingled happily, giving back Veronica all of her caps and then some. The White Glove standing over her shoulder gave a clear, rhythmic golf clap in congratulations.

ULTRA-LUXE WHITE GLOVE: Skillfully done, mademoiselle. Your keen eye and deft hand in our establishment's games is absolutely astonishing.

VERONICA: Hell yeah.

Veronica held her empty drink glass out and the White Glove bowed his head and dutifully poured in another shot of booze.

VERONICA: I'm just too good.

Veronica noticed the man's eyes narrowing from behind the eye holes of his mask. He thought she didn't notice that she noticed, but she do. Did. Whatever.

WHITE GLOVE: Jeune maîtresse, may I ask?

The White Glove gestured towards the slot machine.

WHITE GLOVE: Why do you keep fondling that section of our entertainment machine?

VERONICA: This?

Veronica gave a nervous smile. So the guy noticed her messing with this slot machine, did he? To be fair, all of the other slots were taken; Veronica had found this machine at the end was actually broken for a while now. She just fixed it so it was working again... while 'forgetting' to fix other parts of the machine. Like its stopping plates.

Hey, come on. She was just gonna grab a few caps, then fix it all proper. A preemptive repair fee.

VERONICA: [Speech 30] Uh. Uhhhhh.

Veronica looked around nervously. Her eyes settled on a flickering 'Luck of the Ol'Irish" sign. Whatever an Ol Irish was, she hoped this would work.

VERONICA: [Failed] For... good luck. Of the Olirish.

The White Glove turned on his seat to look at the sign, then slowly turned back to glare at Veronica. There was a new glint of disdain in his eyes.

WHITE GLOVE: If I recall, this particular device was out of commission for tonight. How interesting that the mechanisms inside have repaired themselves.

VERONICA: Eeee-yeah, sounds like someone did your mechanics a favor.

Veronica gave a goofy smile and playfully punched the White Glove on the shoulder of his tailored black suit.

Haha.

WHITE GLOVE: You should come with me, young lady. Why don't you follow me to a special VIP suite we have?

Veronica put a hand over her heart, shocked.

VERONICA: Buh, wha… am I under arrest?

WHITE GLOVE: We have some questions to ask you.

VERONICA: [Speech 20] Ok, ok ok. Ok.

She took a swig of her drink beside her.

VERONICA: [Failed] Would you believe me if I said I found it like this?

The man's voice dropped to a hiss. His eyes narrowed behind his mask.

WHITE GLOVE: You will come with me.

Uh-oh. Veronica tried to stand, but the man kept a firm hand on her shoulder, pushing her down and keeping her seated. She bit her lip.

VERONICA: Don't touch me.

WHITE GLOVE: You'll have more to worry about than just a hand on your shoulder, you little whore. I'm thinking we'll contract you out to our unsavory peers over at the Gomorrah. Or perhaps I'll send you to our kitchens. I'm sure we could find a… use… for you there.

VERONICA: Get your hands off of me you-

Another White Glove stepped in, this one with a gold trim on his mask. He leaned in and whispered at the White Glove who was keeping her sat on that chair. Veronica could see the creepy White Glove's eyes widen, then narrow, all the while glaring straight at her. She held his gaze, staring daggers right back.

It was the gold-trimmed mask who spoke now, while the first mask glowered from slightly behind him. The gold-trimmed mask leaned in, his voice a deeper baritone.

FLOOR MANAGER: Maîtresse, I'm afraid we will be escorting you out of the premises. Please excuse the brusque manner of your egress.

VERONICA: Huh. Why the sudden change of heart?

Veronica spoke her thoughts as she came up with them. She really should stop doing that.

FLOOR MANAGER: Mademoiselle Santangelo, is it? Your presence has been requested… by Maitre Robert House of the Lucky 38.

What...

The Lucky 38?

That Lucky 38?! That giant tower that no-one ever went in or out? But why was she asked into there? Veronica had a sudden vision of the Courier. Where was he? Did he has something to do with this? Somehow, she knew the answer to that already.

WHITE GLOVE MANAGER: I would exit swiftly, girl. You are no longer welcome here. Pray your reception at Master House's home is warmer.

She could take the hint. Veronica got up, checking the creeper-pervert White Glove with her shoulder to bump him into the nearest slot machine. And she made sure to take the several hundred chips that she won off this machine with her before she left.

* * *

She burst into the doors, practically kicking them in. The two securitrons that were escorting her rolled in first, heralding her arrival.

COURIER: Veronica!

The armored mailman got up from one of many lobby tables, walking briskly over to her, a worried tempo to his step.

VERONICA: FedEx! Are you alright?!

A strange voice came crackling out from the darker parts of the Lucky 38's lobby. Veronica had to look around for a moment, as the voice seemed to come from every corner of the Lucky 38's lobby at once. Her gaze eventually settled on a man, shaded in darkness and seated on a barseat, flanked by a small army of securitrons rolling themselves around on a single wheel.

MYSTERY MAN: We are all here then? Wonderful. Then we can begin.

The man stood, the Securitrons scurrying out of his way on their massive wheels like great, hulking rats.

COURIER: Leave Veronica out of this. She's not part of the contract.

MYSTERY MAN: I beg to differ. She was subcontracted under you, my employee. That makes her entitled to a portion of whatever compensation I choose to. Would I be the man I am now, if I were not appreciative to every last one of my beneficiaries?

The man gave a mirthful laugh. He drummed his fingers on the darkwood awnings of his casino. They sounded heavy.

MYSTERY MAN: No man. No man at all.

The Ghost of New Vegas stepped into the light. There stood in front of them… unmistakably… Veronica could barely speak out of shock. Her voice came out as little more than a whisper.

VERONICA: That's Robert House.

Robert Edwin House, President and CEO of RobCo, majority shareholder of REPCONN Aerospace and sole benefactor and proprietor of the glittering New Vegas Strip below them, stood on his own two legs. His cold, dark eyes stared down the scribe girl and the package courier.

* * *

The elevator dinged, and the massive doors slid open to reveal the interior of Robert House's palace in the sky.

They had ascended to the top floor of the Lucky 38. It was a glass penthouse, high above the clouds, where all of the Mojave laid sprawled out below them. From here, Veronica could see everything. Rule over everything. The world just felt so small and so far away, but the sky was so big and so close she felt like she could almost reach out and touch it.

She reached out with her hand toward the window and grabbed a fistful of the great blue heavens. A souvenir for her future listeners.

They were led further down the ring-like floor of the penthouse by House and his cadre of securitrons. Soon they came upon a section of the floor that, like the rest of the Lucky 38, was set aside for table games. Rows upon rows of tables for every type of entertainment. Blackjack and roulette, poker and craps dominated the scenery; there were even specialty games set aside like Mah-Jong and Baccarat. It was a gambler's heaven.

Flanking the entire game floor, there was a small but diverse gallery of ancient artifacts and works of art lined up along the windows of the penthouse, providing its previous guests with exhibits to peruse in between games.

Veronica had drifted ahead and was walking slowly along the gallery, followed closely by two securitrons that rolled quietly beside her.

She stopped before a stone bust of Ramses II.

VERONICA: [Intelligence 8] 'I am great OZYMANDIAS,' saith the stone, The King of Kings; this mighty City shows 'The wonders of my hand.'— The City's gone,— Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose. The site of this forgotten Babylon.

She sensed Robert House approach from behind, sidling up to stand by the scribe girl's side to look upon the stone bust with her. He was shorter than she thought. Just a hair taller than she was.

HOUSE: You know your Horace Smith. Well done.

VERONICA: I was a bit of a nerd in my bunke- ...bunker of a vault. My vault was like a bunker. Yeah.

House gave a knowing smirk and Veronica blushed.

VERONICA: Anyhow, we had just a few books on holotape.

Veronica nodded up at the bust of the dead Egyptian pharaoh, with the opening lines of the poem inscribed in its base at the bottom.

VERONICA: That poem was on one of them.

Robert House blinked, staring within the bust's eyes.

HOUSE: Do you know what the quote means, young lady?

VERONICA: Men can be great and do many great things.

Veronica turned to stare at the centuries-old ghost that was standing by her side and conversing with her.

VERONICA: But eventually, everything fades away.

HOUSE: Very good.

Robert House turned on his heel to look at his taller, more tattered and ragged 'fellow' man. He turned to stare at Courier Six, looking him up and down, sizing him up.

HOUSE: And what of you, sir? Are you also a student of the arts?

COURIER: I was a soldier, once.

HOUSE: Excellent. I appreciate a man who can follow orders.

Veronica gave a wicked grin.

VERONICA: He ditched them, though. Can't keep FedEx here tied down.

HOUSE: Men are creatures of habit, young lady. We are set in our ways.

Robert House looked curiously as the Courier ignored them both, walking past them to the field of playing tables, centuries-old games still left unfinished on their surfaces.

COURIER: Robert Edwin House. You ordered this unit mailed by package courier, from Sunnyvale, New California Republic to the Lucky 38, New Vegas Strip. Request accepted by the Mojave Express on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2281.

The Courier set down his bauble on a converted blackjack table, old casino seats and tables made into grand dining furnishings. The token's silver glinted in the afternoon Mojave light streaming through the massive, thirty-foot tall glass windows that made up the walls of the penthouse of the Lucky 38.

COURIER: Package delivered on October 19th, 2281.

A smile broke out over Robert House's face. He strode over quickly to the blackjack table.

HOUSE: I trust you had no problem transporting it here?

COURIER: There were an abnormally large amount of raider encounters. Vipers. Jackals.

The Courier put a hand on the silver token, lifting and tapping it against the blackjack table.

COURIER: Was that because of you?

Veronica heard about this. Even accounting for the raider battles were her fault… it was still far, far too many, the armored package courier had told her. Something was wrong. It was like they were being hunted the entire time.

How many of them were sent for House's package alone...?

HOUSE: Precious treasures invite powerful risks, which in turn invite great rewards. As a package courier, you would know that. Anything else?

COURIER: There was a band of Great Khans. They were led by a man in a checkered suit.

HOUSE: Oh...? I do know who the checker-suited man is. Pray tell, what did you do with them?

COURIER: I killed them all.

HOUSE: Wonderful.

Robert House's eyes gleamed. And within the black of his pupils... was that a flash of red? Veronica rubbed her face.

House snapped his fingers and a beautiful woman came strutting in, holding a cocktail platter in a single hand. On it, a great pile of shining caps, new as they day they were minted. At first, the clattering sound of the dame's step made Veronica thought that the hottie was wearing metal heels. But the truth dawned on her almost as quickly as her disgust did.

That woman was a robot. So surely she was built for… ew. She made a face.

Her gaze soon turned from the walking sex machine to the pile of cash she was carrying. Her grossed out face was quickly replaced with one of awe. Veronica couldn't help but let her mouth drop. She had never seen so much money in her life. The caps nearly filled that cocktail platter to the brim. The robot set the coin tray lightly on a nearby table, then strut out.

HOUSE: For the successful delivery of my order, a six-percent commision of the expected value of the package comes to nine-thousand, three-hundred and forty-eight caps. Quite a lump sum for a man like you. No offense.

House took a step forward, never breaking gaze with the mailman in front of him.

HOUSE: And for a man of your abilities, I have more to offer. I have many long-term plans that I am in desperate need of a competent lieutenant for.

Robert House held his hand out expectantly. With how short Robert House was, Veronica couldn't help but think that he rather looked like a spoiled child, holding his hand out for a treat. Even she knew to keep that to herself, though.

Heh... Thinking before she spoke? Her mailman-manservant must be rubbing off on her.

HOUSE: Well, that's all in the future. For now, hand it over.

COURIER: First off. What are you going to use it for?

HOUSE: I don't believe that to be any of your business. You signed a contract and are obligated to deliver.

COURIER: What a man like you does is everyone's business. I won't hand this over to you without knowing what this is.

Robert House narrowed his eyes. There was a real glint of danger in the man's face as he stared down the masked face of the Courier before him.

HOUSE: It's a software program… a sort of list of instructions so robots can run. Within that bauble is the next update to the Operating System that all my Securitrons currently operate.

Robert House shrugged.

HOUSE: A harmless software update, I assure you. It is meant to provide the general public with the superior safety and well-being that only the next version of my Securitrons, the Mark-Twos, can offer.

Veronica watched the Courier raise his head, staring down the Securitrons around the room, so she too followed suit. She looked up and down their engineering. The PDQ-88b Securitron really was a marvel of technology. The sophistication of both their artificial intelligence and hardware easily exceeded anything she ever saw down in the Hidden Valley Bunker. And their weapons...

The Securitrons had their standard nine-millimeter submachine guns and the X25 gatling lasers on their arms, but there were also those ribbed boxes on their shoulders and that long, lengthy tube that fed underneath the machine gun...

VERONICA: [Repair 80] Then what are the multi-target missile launchers and automatic grenade launchers for? Bit overkill for the spoon-wielding murderhobos in Freeside, dontcha think?

Veronica turned to stare House in his face, expecting some retort, but for once the enigmatic man had no reply.

VERONICA: [Success] You're planning to fight the NCR.

COURIER: House. I won't let you drag this land into another war.

Robert House's smile began to fade.

HOUSE: I strongly urge you to reconsider. I, Robert House, am offering you both purpose and quite a lot of money, you know.

Veronica groaned.

VERONICA: Please, God, shut up. You are so full of yourself.

Robert House turned to look at the source of the insult, a bemused look on his face.

VERONICA: Quit acting like the caps from your hand turn to solid gold. We. Have. Jobs.

Veronica slid her head back and forth and snapped her fingers with every word at the ghost standing before them. She hit him with more sass than all the bottles of Sunset in the Mojave. And even gave him a little hip turn with a 'bye bitch' handwave at the end to punctuate it all. Course, she had to turn herself back around right after, because she didn't actually think she was going to be able to just stroll out of here.

House watched Veronica awkwardly realign herself back towards him with a smile that was now tinged with pity.

HOUSE: I meant no disrespect. But it is objectively true that I can pay and utilize your friend better than the Mojave Express ever could.

COURIER: I will never work for you.

VERONICA: I got it!

Veronica pointed at House, rudely and boldly as she cared.

VERONICA: You think you're Ozymandius, buried in his kingdom of sand. You think you're some great king of kings, working to save his what's left empire. But you're only half-right. You're the wrong kind of Oz.

HOUSE: And which Ozymandius am I, dear?

Veronica grinned.

VERONICA: You're Oz, the Wizard of. You're the man behind the curtain. The humbug from Omaha, talking to yourself through a loudspeaker in your Emerald City. You hide behind your robots and your walls and your machines but without that- you're just a sad, sex-doll-humping nerd.

House's entire body shudders. With anger? No. With silent amusement.

HOUSE: You are quite the unique soul, aren't you?

House held his hands to his sides mockingly, imitating the pose of the Son of God from twenty-two centuries past. The avatar's face flickered, revealing for a split second the black, faceless oval screen that was projecting what once was the eminent Robert House's face to the world. When his face came back, his eyes were colder.

HOUSE: So I'm just a man. Is that reason enough to spurn me? Do I have to part the sea or feed the thousands just to recruit an employee?

VERONICA: I dunno, but for starts, I like my bosses to not be fucking robot sex slaves.

Veronica stops herself there. She tilts her head at the Courier with an inquisitive air.

VERONICA: Say, FedEx. You didn't keep that FISTO thing for yourself, did you-

The Courier steps in between Veronica and House, staring down the Ghost of New Vegas.

COURIER: This world once was full of men who thought themselves better than us. They played God with people's lives and tormented us long after they died in the nuclear fires of their own making.

The Courier stepped forwards, taking the silver token from the counter of the table. Robert House's eyes narrowed at this, but made no move to stop the delivery man from reclaiming his package.

COURIER: Men like you have destroyed it all. The world doesn't need more people playing dice with its fate.

The Courier pocketed his hands, hiding the silver-gleaming bauble from the eminent Mr House's sight. The first defiance the Ghost has experienced in centuries.

COURIER: I'm keeping this. I won't let you take this world away from the people who live in it.

Robert House blinks at this.

HOUSE: I had hoped such petty sophistry died along with the Old World. Champions should rule their ideals and not the other way around. It appears I've overestimated you.

Robert House circled the table and gently put his hand on the Courier's shoulder. Compared to the towering man in Ranger Armor, Robert Edwin House cut a dramatically smaller, frailer frame.

Then the golem's strength became clear.

The humanoid machine nearly snapped the Courier's collarbone with his grip. House's avatar pressed downwards on Courier Six's shoulder and the mailman gave out a grunt of pain, falling to a knee. If he could not make this man acquiesce with reason, he would make him to do so by force.

HOUSE: Because you've made one miscalculation.

The man's face flickers, and the stern, imposing image of Mr. House is replaced with one... where he is smiling.

HOUSE: [Terrifying Presence] What made you think that it was your delivery that I needed?

The images of the policemen on the securitrons' screens suddenly cut out, fading away; they revealed instead a new, more sinister look: nothing but a black screen with a single, red dot that glowed and trailed from side to side, looking like a single, evil eye. Those single eyes watched and tracked. They calculated how to most efficiently kill every living thing in the room.

The Securitrons Mk. II began to circle Mr. House and his guests, towering over the Courier and Veronica, forming a whirling ring of death that cut off any path of escape. With a word they would end every living thing in the room.

HOUSE: That Silver Rook you have in your hands is nothing but a bauble. An empty data disk used as a decoy. The Platinum Chip, along with its petabytes of data that made up my updated Operating System, has been installed into New Vegas' defense network and fully functioning for the past twenty-eight hours.

Two of the securitions came rolling forth from behind a curtain screen, wheeling forwards a medical cart full of... Veronica recoiled in disgust. Real disgust, this time. On that medical cart was a mess of dark, crimson gore plied high upon its surface.

She saw in-between the folds of intestine and a femur... a dark-skinned hand. With a glint of a ring.

And she felt like she had to hurl.

HOUSE: May I introduce Mabel Atherby, the fourth package courier and the one I chose to carry the Platinum Chip. She arrived just a few days before you did. She, too, chose defiance in the face of overwhelming force.

Mr. House glared down at the Courier, his gaze burning into the man forcibly kneeled before him.

HOUSE: Enter my employment. Now. Or I shall have my army make 'martyrs' out of you and your companion as well.

The Courier said nothing. He instead shuffled back, slipping out of Robert House's crushing grip. He rose unsteadily to his feet while rubbing his shoulder. Mr. House just stared at him, raising his chin while looking down upon the towering package courier despite being shorter in stature.

HOUSE: Your delay in reply is all the answer I need. I have no use for a tool that will eventually turn against me.

The securitrons began to close in, the circle wheeling closer and closer. Veronica and the Courier began to inch up against each other, back to back against the full dozen killbots that were closing in on them.

HOUSE: As a Courier, you were one of a few chosen. One of the lucky six. You could have had prestige and purpose in my service. In death, you will be just one more of millions that this desert swallowed whole.

House gave a rueful sigh.

HOUSE: A waste of your competence, if you ask me.

Veronica scoffed.

VERONICA: And if you ask me, you're way too smart for your own good, House.

The man behind the curtain didn't reply. Instead, his rebuttal was the weapons systems in his Mark II Securitrons warming up, the missiles being chambered into their launchers and the electron packs in its X-25 gatling lasers being slotted in. The first of the barrels of the gatling lasers began to glow red.

VERONICA: You know why?

The Courier took the Silver Rook out.

COURIER: Because this rook is no pawn.

The Courier raised his helm to the side, his red lenses burning into the array of computer screens that was mounted on the wall next tohim, ignoring the robot puppet to his back. Instead he held his hand up to show off the Silver Rook perched between his fingers towards the dozen cameras mounted on the periphery of the computer screens. This thing, which caused the two of them so much grief and trouble over the past few months. This thing, which a man who fancied himself a god thought to use to play with mortals like him.

The avatar's eyes widened.

And the mailman clenched his fist, priming the explosive. Detonating the contents of a pulse grenade that Veronica had swapped out with the previous contents; the silver rook shone with a blinding light and the ensuing electromagnetic pulse blew out every single electronic device in the room.

The Securitrons Mk II, their circuits fused by the pulse grenade, stumbled backwards. The robot's arms flailed about, wildly firing their explosives about the room. House's robotic avatar laid on the ground, unmoving, its facial screen black and lifeless.

Veronica curled up in a ball, fire and light erupting all around her, while the Courier came in to wrap his armored body around the scribe girl.

And they were engulfed.

* * *

There came from the face of the Great Watcher of the Mojave tremendous gouts of smoke and fire. Then the eyes of the Watcher shattered; the tempered glass of the Lucky 38 fell like shining rain down upon the shocked onlookers below. Reciprocating explosions shook the body of the Lucky 38 and the pedestrians and civilians below began to panic, fearing its collapse.

Then, two figures flew from the shattered eyes of the Lucky 38. One, grasping onto another, who had tossed out a grappling hook. The two swung far out into the void, their literal life-line that kept them from plummeting to their deaths was held an inch-thick rope that hooked to a burning, crumbling ledge.

But against all odds, it held.

The two swung there for a bit.

Then he began to loose the rope, and they rappeled down.

* * *

A long, long line of mechanical avatars laid dormant within some hidden, secret warehouse under the Lucky 38. A single computer flickered to life, running some scripts, hundreds of lines of code racing across its screen with the recent 'death' of yet another House.

One of the mechanical avatars, released from its restraints, fell from their formation. The newest Robert House laid on that floor, unmoving. He- it- made no attempt to get up. There were no eyes within this room. No enemies to terrorize, nor allies to impress.

There was only House, of many bodies but of one mind, of many eyes but of one purpose:

Never had he, Robert Edwin House, ever been humiliated like this.

He was going to kill that Courier. He was going to tear apart the entire Mojave to get to that one man if he had to. Enough of this charade. Enough of these pleasantries with those who would steal what was his and stand in his way.

Robert House began to rise, his eye flickering with a single, red glow.

Outside, one by one, each and every single one of the Securitron Mk IIs began to activate, their friendly neighborhood cop faces replaced with that single cold, dark, red-glowing eye. With deathly purpose did they seek the nearest unsuspecting NCR military police. With a singular determination did they advance in the hundreds upon the NCR embassy established within New Vegas' inner walls.

This was war.

* * *

It was night time.

They had managed to make it out of New Vegas, despite landing in a crowd of people and immediately being accosted by every MP and Securitron within the block. The two of them were battered, bloodied, and probably missing a finger or a toe here or there. They had no weapons, having all been confiscated as they entered the Lucky 38. They had no food, as they had no time to restock. Hell, they barely had any money since Veronica had gambled away most of it in the hour she was left alone in a casino.

They were back to square one. Square negative one. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and the undying hatred of the most powerful man in the Mojave Desert. They were well and totally screwed.

Veronica turned to the man she was propping up with her shoulder, as the two of them limped through Freeside, running a three-legged race away from the carnage they left behind in New Vegas.

VERONICA: Hey, FedEx.

The Courier glanced up, his red lenses staring inquisitively back into Veronica's eyes.

She gave him a beautiful smile.

VERONICA: I'm really glad I came with you.


	5. Chapter 5

It was dark. Black clouds hung over the nighttime sky, shrouding the stars and the moon until no light shone over the Mojave Wastes. The only light came from the raging fires at Camp McCarren, birthing a false dawn towards the North. The NCR's main base was under siege by an army of House's Securitrons.

At first, some of the troopers in Squad Eight thought they were lucky, not to have been trapped in McCarren once the siege started. But their celebrations were short-lived.

Those metal devils forced them to hole up in a building.

Private Morales heard the distinctive whirring of the robot's wheel before she saw it approach. She adjusted her aim along the shattered window rail, for all the good it would do. Her hands were trembling so badly she'd be more likely to shoot her foot.

"Contact left!" She called out.

All of the NCR soldiers turned their rifles at their comrade's warning, sighting another one of those damned Securitrons began rolling its way up toward their abandoned storefront.

"Open fire!" They heard their sergeant yell, and their entire squad began unloading on the tin can. Slaves to their training, most of their team fired Center of Mass at the robot. But it was like punching holes in a sheet of paper. Their bullets drilled holes harmlessly through its metal body before splattering on its reinforced casing on the inside, and the Securitron kept rolling forwards. As soon as the machine came within range, its Gatling laser began firing.

There was a horrible scream towards Private Morales' right. She backed away from the window to see her squadmate reaching out towards her with a dying hand, his entire lower jaw turned to ash by a laser to the face. The man could only gurgle before closing his eyes and falling still.

"No..." Morales felt tears running down her face.

"Keep firing!" The Sarge screamed, but their morale was flagging. Morales could hear more of the Securitrons advancing from all sides.

More flashes of lasers, the robot's unfeeling faces briefly illuminated in the glow of their shots. More bodies were falling, burning away into dust and smoke before they could even hit the floor. Half their squad was ash, and the other half was cowering behind cover. The robots were getting so close; Morales could smell the ionized air from their lasers. Somewhere in the cacophony, the Sarge had been silenced, and he had fallen to the ground.

So this is it, Christina thought to herself. This is how she dies.

"Esteban..." She muttered to herself. Her trembling hand reached up his dog tag around her neck.

And then, there was a whistling in the air.

In the back of her mind, Christina recognized the tune. Something famous. Something that she liked. Then there was the crack of a gunshot. She heard a strange spluttering come from right above her head.

The securitron that had been peering over her cover collapsed, it's screen flickering wildly. The metal tubes of its arms draped over Morales' face.

"Eh?"

More gunshots.

Private Morales took the chance to peek out of cover.

"Backup! About damn time!" She heard one of her squadmates cry, but she couldn't see from where their supposed allies were coming. All she heard was the sound of their gunfire and the metal bodies of the Securitron Mark Ones hitting shattered asphalt.

The antenna of one of the securitrons disappeared with the sound of one gunshot. It began whooping wildly, firing its Gatling lasers at its fellow robots. Another bullet burst the tire of a securitron that was trying to charge the entrance, and it fell over completely flat on its face, skidding into the station that they were in, its limbs flailing. A final gunshot pierced its back panel, sending sparks and flame bursting out of its body.

Then, silence. It was done.

Private Morales turned out to face the shadows around their building. And in reply, those shadows stepped out into plain view.

Red eyes, burning in the darkness.

"Mary Mother of-." Morales heard a trooper next to her swear over and over. "Ranger Vets."

Four of them, all in shining black armor, oozing out of the shadows.

It was their Sergeant who got up first, stepping out to reach out with one hand, his other hanging limply to the side. Holy shit. The Sarge survived.

"God in Heaven." Sarge gave one of his rare smiles, even though it came off more like a grimace. "Thanks for the assist."

The Ranger Vet ignored the offered hand, and the Sergeant bit his tongue and dropped it.

"Why are you under attack?" The Ranger Vet asked, his voice quiet and soft. So weird, Morales was expecting a sound like churning gravel.

"Fucking House betrayed us is why." Sarge spit. "All of his robots suddenly attacked the Strip Embassy. They're holding Ambassador Crocker and over a dozen GIs and MPs hostage there. He… he uh..."

The Sarge looked like he was about to faint. He was reeling.

"Sarge!" Morales called out.

She rushed out to catch him before he topped over. The two of them crumpled to the floor, but she managed to guide the Sarge into an upright sitting position.

"Morales." The Sarge winced. "Thanks."

The shortest Ranger Vet stepped forwards, the one that had a Scythe painted on the right Pauldron.

"And McCarran?" Morales looked up at the sound of the second Ranger Vet talking. That was a woman.

"Under siege." The Sarge looked up at the four Ranger Vets before him. "Our boys could use your help up there."

"We're not going to McCarran."

"Then… Are you going to the Strip? You're going to take out House?"

The Rangers didn't react to that. For some reason… Morales was feeling uneasy.

"Yes." The Scythe Ranger finally replied.

The Sarge didn't seem to notice the pause. He gave a ghastly grin, his eyes looking straight through the ranger vets. Sergeant Astor was looking pale. "Good. Send that fucker to hell."

"Ah..." The Sarge looked up to her saviors. "If you're going North… Be careful. I came from the Strip, and I've seen some Securitrons up there that are even more dangerous. They've got powerful weapons, and they're smarter, too. You need to avoid them at all costs."

Christina shuddered at the story that the Sarge gave them of the Securitron MkIIs descending upon the Strip a few days ago. Grenades were flying everywhere, missiles burning and cracking the shining white concrete. Bodies filled the craters in the streets. The Sarge had just barely managed to escape the deathtrap that New Vegas had become.

Black Thursday, they were already calling that day. Might well be a Black Month at this rate. Thank God, the robots outside of the Strip hadn't been upgraded yet.

The Ranger Vets looked at each other. Something about the way they moved… did they look disinterested? Morales pondered this. Then if they weren't going to the Strip, then where were they…?

"Have you seen another Ranger Veteran recently?" The Scythe-emblazoned Vet asked. "Male, about mid-thirties. Older generation armor. Possibly working as a foot courier for the Mojave Express?"

"Another vet…?" Sarge frowned. "No, I can't say that I have. The only other vets that I've ever seen are the ones back in the Hub, guarding President Mayfield."

"...Then what about a woman? Around the same age, blonde hair." The Scythe-emblazoned Ranger Vet gave a pause. "Goes by the name Rose of Sharon, Cass-."

"Cass?!" Morales blurted out.

All of the Ranger Veterans and her entire troop turned to look at her. Christina felt her face flush at the sudden attention.

"Ah… Cass is a… a friend of mine." She frowned. Morales hadn't been able to check on her drinking buddy ever since Black Thursday. Cass was tough as nails, but the patrols of House's Securitrons had been ravaging New Vegas and the surrounding slums of Freeside, looking for NCR troopers that had fled into the slums populace.

Was she ok…?

"Where is Rose of Sharon?" The Scythe Ranger demanded.

"She... she's working for the Followers. Last I saw her, at the Old Mormon Fort in North Freeside." Morales rose to grasp at the Scythe Ranger's gloved hands. "Please, if she's in trouble, help her!"

The Ranger Vet slowly peeled Morales' grip off of her gloves.

"Let's go." The Scythed Ranger said.

And quietly as they came, the Rangers began to leave.

But the Scythe Ranger suddenly stopped. And at her step, all of the other Rangers stopped as well. Was she the squad leader?

"You." The Scythe Ranger pointedly asked Morales. Red eyes burned from underneath the brim of that pitch-black riot-control helmet. "Where are you going after this?"

And she felt a jolt of fear. But why…?

"I-I'm..." Was it the Ranger's intensity that was causing her heart to clench? Or… was it something else?

Morales turned to the Sarge. And the Sarge hung his head.

"Squad Eight is going back to Camp McCarran… but I won't force you all to come with me." The Sarge said to the surviving troopers. "House will take our airport over my cold, dead hands. You soldiers can make your own choice. As of now, I'm giving all of you leave."

Morales turned from the Sarge back to the Ranger Vet in front of her. And Christina gave the Scythe Ranger a smile that she hoped didn't look too sad.

"I'm following the Sarge, then."

Morales reached up to touch Esteban's dog tag again. Give me strength, Tebi.

"I'm a wimp and a bad soldier… but still, I'm a soldier." Christina gave a tearful smile at the Scythe Ranger. "I'm going to be brave, like my husband."

The Scythe Ranger said nothing. She only stared back at the trooper for only a moment, before turning and walking away into the night. And the rest of her squad followed her, disappearing as quietly as they came.

"He was a Ranger like you, you know!" Christina called out, but they were already gone. She sighed. Rangers sure came in all types.

* * *

It was just the two of them now. Every last one of Squad Eight surviving men threw down their guns and took the Sarge's offered Leave of Absence... Every last one, except for her. The Sergeant had to lean on Christina, but the two of them limped onwards. Towards the sounds of gunfire, laser, and explosions that were slowly eating away at the fortified airport they called home.

She swallowed. Her hand reached up to grasp Esteban's dog tag again, and when she reached it, her shaking stopped.

Tebi. I'm going to see you soon.

* * *

"Country roads…" 'Reaper' was singing to herself. "Take me home..."

The Ranger Hit Squad was watching over the Southern Freeside ruins. All four horsemen. Callsign 'Reaper' stood on the third floor of a shattered skeleton of a building, watching the two soldiers limp their way into certain death. Because of the injured First Sergeant Astor, the ones going back to the fight had made far less time, made tracking them completely trivial.

As for the rest of their squad….

On the other side of the building and a floor up, across a pit where the story used to be, Ranger Veteran 'Vita' whistled. So he found the rest of Squad Eight.

"Where?" Reaper called out, not taking her eyes off of the two soldiers slowly trudging back to Camp McCarren.

"Headed towards Junction 15." Vita peered through his scope, his Ranger's Helmet off for the spotting. He never did like ranging through his Ranger's helmet lenses. "Three-hundred mikes and counting."

His finger tensed on his custom DKS-501 scout rifle. "Clear shot," he offered.

"Hold fire," Reaper ordered. "Asim. Double back. Neutralize the deserters."

"Mm." The quiet Ranger known as 'Salaam' got up from checking his weapons.

"Use a AER12. Make it look like securitrons ambushed them."

"Hm." Salaam stretched his arm out expectantly and the last member of the Ranger Hit Squad, 'Fats', tossed him a salvaged laser rifle from the war with the Brotherhood. Vita seemed disappointed. He pulled his sand-styled camouflaged gun back, putting his Ranger's Helm back on.

Salaam nodded his head up towards the two troopers that didn't flee.

And the others? The mute man seemed to ask.

Reaper looked out at the fires surrounding Camp McCarren. They were more substantial now, with no sign of either flame nor fighting abating. Echoes of suffering carried even all the way here; the sound of screams and explosions and the smell of gunpowder and sulfur. And those two were limping right into it.

"Leave them." Reaper turned away.

Nothing else mattered besides getting 'Ohlone'. For seven long years, they wandered the desert, looking for their Ghost Traitor. And they were so close to getting him now.

Chief Hanlon. It's almost over.

These roads do have an end.

"Let's pluck ourselves a desert rose."

* * *

Begin Tape 5.

Red Athena stepped onto her arena's podium, spreading her arms, reveling in the cheers of the crowd and the echoes of their screams. Their vibrations shook the corrugated metal at her feet; her battered crimson robes fluttered, her very core trembled under the weight of their bloodlust. Here was the Mojave's Tartarus, the Mojave's bloody altar to the Goddess of the Hunt. Here the sacred combatants battled to the death in honor of the powerful. Here the strong were held in remembrance for all eternity and the weak fed to the jaws of hell.

And in the midst of them all, in the middle of an arena surrounded by jagged, rusted metal platforms that made it look like the gaping maw of some great worm, the two of them stood, alone, trapped in the southern cage awaiting battle.

Locked in the opposing cage were three captured Fiends, drug addicts from the absolute worst side of Freeside. There were four at the start of the night, but the remaining three had gotten bored in captivity, and did several unspeakable crimes to their compatriot.

COURIER: Go on.

The Courier stood off to the side, hands on his hips nonchalantly. He looked more like a coach than a fellow combatant in the Thorn's arena.

VERONICA: Do I have to?

Veronica put her hand up to her nose and pinched it. She could smell the drug addicts from over here. Must be jet users, seeing as you made jet out of literal cow dung.

COURIER: Until we can get you another power fist, you're going to have to learn to fight bare-handed.

VERONICA: Yeah... and whose fault is that?

Veronica gave her smuggest smile at her armored mailman-manservant, and even the usually stoic man had to turn his head out of shame.

Yep.

For once, their utterly precarious and shitty position wasn't her fault. Because they had to leave all their weapons, confiscated in the Lucky 38. And for once, her unflappable companion looked embarrassed, shuffling his feet uncomfortably. At least, she thought he looked embarrassed, from underneath all those layers of carbon weave and kevlar—damn full-body riot armor.

Anyhow, it meant she could milk this for all it was worth.

COURIER: ... I'll buy you a new power fist.

Veronica fell to the ground, covering her face with her hands. She let out a dry sob.

VERONICA: That was my nana's power-fist… *hic* Passed down through generations... *hic* How could you ever replace such a… a priceless heirloom?

COURIER: [Perception 2] Don't lie.

She pouted.

VERONICA: Boo. Play along, why don't you?

COURIER: Go on.

Veronica sighed. She reluctantly pushed open the gate that was keeping her in the cage, signaling the start of the match. The scribe girl could hear that psycho lady from above howling in excitement, and the roar of the residents of the Undercity around them began to swell with her energy.

The first of the Fiends that stumbled out was an older man, his eyes yellow and full. He could have almost looked innocent with those wide, round eyes, if it wasn't for the amount of blood coating his mouth and hands. The other two seemed like brothers, both of them younger than the old Freesider Fiend, with fewer years of age combined than their third brethren. Also, fewer teeth combined. A lifetime of jet abuse and beating the piss out of each other for said jet had long since robbed them those.

The brothers both sighted Veronica at the same time and gave each other wide, toothless grins. The older man didn't seem like he noticed her at all, though he began shuffling sideways at her all the same.

COURIER: Let's see what you can do.

Veronica groaned, readying her fists, as the first of the drugged-out thugs began to charge.

* * *

She punched the druggie raider. The older man stumbled backward in a daze, his filthy nose bleeding, his eyes glazed and unfocused. The man's shiv, made of nothing more than some cloth wrapped around a piece of pipe, fell clattering to the metal platform below.

Off to the side, the Courier was seated on a makeshift couch, made up of the bodies of the two Fiend Brothers that Veronica had (painfully) managed to put out.

VERONICA: [Unarmed 35] Yah-!

Veronica struck with a right cross. The old Fiend blinked at her.

And when she pulled her arm back, her fist was bent in a weird direction.

Her eyes widened.

Veronica fell into a crouch, clutching her dislocated hand. The roar of the Thorn's audience above grew wilder at the sight of her injury.

VERONICA: [Failed] Hnnng! Ahhhhhh? Haaaaah!

COURIER: You're bending your wrist before you hit.

She snapped at him.

VERONICA: The guy has a hard head! All of these jerks do!

She was going to give him more of her mind, but her hand suddenly popped back in place, and the new spurt of pain was too much. She curled into a ball on the bloodstained floor, muttering a chain of curses under her breath.

COURIER: Calm down. You'll get the hang of it.

The Courier cocked his head.

COURIER: Or your knuckles will harden up.

VERONICA: Oh. Hoho.

Veronica shot up, wheeling around to stomp towards her mailman-manservant, her hands raised in a sort of grasping motion at the mailman's neck. She ignored the advancing, zombie-like drug addict at her back.

VERONICA: No. You did not just give me shit there. Not from you, Mr. Deadpan Dumbass.

Veronica lunged at him, but the Courier dodged her and rose, rubbing his shoulders.

COURIER: Let me show you how to do it.

The older Fiend had picked his shiv back up, lurking in the background. The man's glazed, yellowed eyes fixed on Veronica; he then ran at her screaming, yelling in his language of the moon fairies. The Courier stepped in front of Veronica and grabbed hold of the man's hand. The armored mailman then pulled and stepped to the side, dragging the addled drug addict along with him; the man's bare feet scraped a full arc against the corrugated metal underfoot.

The Courier pulled his fist back.

COURIER: [Piercing Strike] [Paralyzing Palm] [Bloody Mess] Watch closely.

Then he reached out with an open palm and pierced his entire arm through the older man's chest.

The elderly Fiend twitched like a frog on a stick, convulsing so violently it was as if the man was going to shake himself to pieces.

And then the raider exploded into a fine mist of blood, gore, and rags. The Courier turned back to Veronica, a rain of blood pouring all around him.

COURIER: [Success] Something like that.

She just stood there, mouth agape.

VERONICA: Wha…

Veronica slowly raised her hands to her head.

VERONICA: How is that even possible?!

Veronica gestured at the splatter of blood and guts on the metal floor.

VERONICA: Why did he explode?!

COURIER: Good CQC fundamentals.

VERONICA: Fuck you!

From above, they could hear Red Athena screaming in delight at the carnage.

* * *

There was the jangling of many hundreds of caps cutting its way through the nighttime silence.

VERONICA: Money, money, money.

COURIER: Veronica.

VERONICA: Moooooney-

COURIER: Please don't get us mugged.

Veronica was whistling while tossing her bag of caps in her hand over and over, drawing ugly looks from Westside's residents with their jangle.

Ah. Veronica thought she saw a shiv. She quickly pocketed their winnings from the Thorn, stowing it safely away in her many pouches under her robes.

Weird. There weren't floods of muggers and thugs pouring out of the alleyways to loot her corpse.

VERONICA: Are there… less people? I wonder why?

It must be a slow day.

The Courier remained silent. He only gave a wayward glance back at where they had come. New Vegas. Once a prosperous city, turned into a battleground, finally into a graveyard. There was only flame, destruction, and House's sentinels left. And Robert House was now tightening his grip on the surrounding ruins of Freeside around New Vegas. The two of them had just barely managed to escape through the sewer systems to evade House's patrols.

Ah. So that was why.

The Courier hunched over, looking down.

VERONICA: Hey… it's not your fault. House… he had everything he needed already. He was just playing around with you. And this war… he was always going to do that.

COURIER: I should have done something.

She looked at the armored mailman. He was walking slower, his body more hunched. And in the tilt of his Ranger's Helm and the shuffle of his gait… that was sadness, right?

Not on her watch.

She reached out to loop him in.

VERONICA: Hey, Dad. You know what I've got here?

COURIER: My arm?

VERONICA: A man.

Veronica closed her eyes, swaying to and fro with the Courier trailing her down that shattered highway. She held her finger up like Plato in the School of Athens with an academic air and a very confident tone to her quip.

VERONICA: 'And man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of Existentialism.'

COURIER: I don't know what that is.

VERONICA: Neither do I, but our bunker only had so many holotapes on philosophy after Watkins did a bad 'rm -r -f' so just chillax, Max

COURIER: But what does that-

VERONICA: It means to accept your limitations, for thou but a mere mortal. It means that you are who you make yourself to be. So believe in yourself, or you'll lose your soul in your regrets.

Veronica looked up and smiled at him. She reached out and punched him in his carbon-weave cuirass. Her previously dislocated wrist twinged.

Ouch. She had to give him his next platitudes through a wince.

VERONICA: You're not a god or an alien or some kind of superman. You're a dude. An awesome dude. Be that dude.

COURIER: Heh. Yes, ma'am.

VERONICA: And what does this dude wanna do…-de?

COURIER: Cass.

VERONICA: Heh. Gross.

COURIER: I want to take her on a honeymoon. I… read in some old magazines that's what newlyweds are supposed to do. And Cass deserves it.

Veronica saw the package courier shuffle a bit at this. Was he embarrassed? D'aww.

COURIER: I could take her across the Rocky Mountains. Montana will be nice this time of year.

The armored mailman's helm swiveled to gaze out to the North. He was already looking so far away. Veronica had to let out a sigh at him. Why was she worried about him in the first place? Her mailman-manservant was always thinking one step ahead.

And what did she want to do? Where would she go?

She hadn't even figured that out for herself yet. What was she giving out advice for?

VERONICA: I… I bet Montana would be beautiful.

Veronica only then realized that she was talking absent-mindedly.

Oops. She bet the Courier had turned to look at her, but she had already turned away from him.

Crap. It was coming.

COURIER: Veronica, you're welcome to come with-

She thrust her hand out.

She sniffed.

VERONICA: Stop. Please.

The two of them stopped walking.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. She mentally replied. She let out a single, silent sob.

I'm happy. But please, just stop.

She didn't want him to see her cry. She gave herself another minute to collect herself before she decided to keep marching on. She heard her companion following suit close by, and the two of them trudged on in silence.

* * *

"RAGH!" Cass screamed, raised her shotgun high, then slammed it into the Securitron's screen, shattering the glass and ramming the tube deep within its internal electronics. Though her fingers were numb and raw with the shock of the hundreds of shots she fired, she still found the strength to pull the two triggers on her over/under shotgun, discharging both shells deep within the machine.

Still, the machine was twitching on the ground. Cass drew her shotgun out.

Then she slammed a heavy boot right into the middle of the hole. The securitron stopped moving. Cass swayed, pulling her foot out of the robot, barely noticing the cuts crisscrossing her calf.

"Bea?" Cass yelled out, limping down the side of that abandoned strip mall. The rest of the guards should be mopping up the last of the Securitrons that had ambushed them. "Bea, how many can still walk? We gotta get-"

Cass rounded the corner. And she hung her head.

There were only three left, and they were standing around the dusted, shriveled old ghoul that she had come to know over the last few months working at the Old Mormon Fort. Beatrix Russell had made it through the Nuclear Holocaust and a thousand different battles over the previous century… just to bite it here.

Cass grit her teeth, fighting back the tears. She couldn't cry in front of her guys.

She wanted to reach down to close Beatrix's eyes, but the ghoul's eyelids were long gone. Instead, she reached out to pull the ghoul's cowboy hat over her face.

You did well, Bea.

Cass looked on the remainder of their patrol. Three guards, not including her. They couldn't escort a class of kindergarteners out of the Mojave with this number, let alone the entire body of the Followers and the refugees they were protecting.

"You guys." Cass nodded her head towards where they had left their convoy. If they waited any longer, the Followers might send men to look for them—no point in anyone else dying today. "Go on ahead. I'll draw the robot-fucks away from the refugees."

"Like hell!" One of her comrades protested, but Cass shoved the man back with a single arm.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on dying." Cass gave a smile. "I'm waiting for someone."

"Someone? Who?"

"...The dumb fucker who probably started this whole shitfest." Cass's eyes grew huger, and one of them twitched. All of her fellow guards began to instinctively back away as they recognized that unique tilt in Cass's head and that look in her eyes.

She would bet her life that the empty, brain-dead suit of armor she called a husband went ahead and did something stupid again.

"My hubby."

* * *

She laid her head back against the shattered concrete wall, brought the bottle up to her teeth and sucked. It had taken almost a half an hour, but she had finally gotten those dumb fucks that she called her comrades to get a fucking move on. Now she could drink away her sorrows in peace. The fire in front of her was unusually bright on purpose. They figured out within the first few days that the robofucks were attracted to heat sources. This stunt would draw at least most of them away from the caravan. That would buy them some time.

And all that was left… was to wait for the fuckers to come.

She pulled her arm back and tossed the empty whiskey bottle out. The glass shattered somewhere out in the distance. Oops. She giggled. She shouldn't litter. Where… where were those robot… fucks… anyways? The night was quiet. And cold. And then… Cass heard a song. It was whistling in the air. She knew that song.

"Country roads… take me home..." Cass smiled to herself. She liked that song.

Welp, robots never sung. So that meant…

Cass got to her feet, tottering a little. Damn, she needed to pee. Then she unslung her shotgun, her strawberry blonde locks falling slowly over her rose-tinged face.

"Alright, show yourself! Who the hell?!"

Her eyes widened when she saw who it was.

A black helm, black armor, black duster… and burning red eyes. The Veteran Ranger had her hands up in surrender. The armored Ranger began to walk towards Cass purposefully, a powerful stride in her step.

"NCR Rangers. Are you Rose of Sha-"

And she shot the female Ranger straight in the chest. The buckshot smashed a spider web pattern in the Ranger's plate, sending the armored woman stumbling back. But she did not fall. The female Ranger raised her hand. A signal to others?

Shit, Cass thought to herself.

The Ranger raised her helm. Her red eyes burned into Cass's baby blues. "...How did you know?"

"Know? Know what?" Cass pulled her shotgun up a little higher. "I mistook you for someone else is all. Mah bad."

Cass narrowed her eyes at the Ranger. "You know… I really hate that armor."

"So you are Ohlone's woman." Veteran Ranger 'Reaper' began to stride forwards. Her white bear's skull shone white against the pitch black of her kevlar duster. "Good. Then this will be quick."

Says you, you raging bitch- Cass thought as she fired her second shot, but as she was pulling her trigger, the armored Ranger was already dodging, lunging low and to the side.

And then, she heard his fucking voice in her head again.

_Don't commit to a firing angle in close ranges. The Courier said, during one of their few breaks in Cassidy Caravans._

_She rolled her eyes as Professor Guns and Explosions was giving their motley crew another lecture on the wonderful world of putting bullets into people's heads. Almost no one was listening. It was mostly just her, and that was only because by being around him, no one else would bother her while she drank._

_Long-range, you aim and then fire. Close range, you fire and move your gun at the same time._

"FUCK YOU!" Cass yelled, and she flicked her over/under shotgun towards her evading target just as she was firing, tracking the Ranger's movement. The surprise shotgun blast caught Reaper on the shoulder, knocking her to a knee.

"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you…" Cass muttered, cracking her shotgun open and sliding into two new shells in smooth, consecutive motions. She brought her gun up, but a black-gloved hand suddenly appeared and slammed itself into her shotgun's breach, preventing her from closing the action.

"You-" Cass yelled, but Reaper's fist connected with her face, sending her staggering to the ground.

Holy shit. She's been in her share of fights. But she had never been hit like that before.

Cass centered herself, then drew her fist back. She lunged at the Black Ranger, swinging like crazy. Holy. Rose of Sharon, Cassidy, has been in her share of fights, and no one moved like this armored bitch could. Forget getting past that armor, first she'd have to stop swinging for empty air.

A sudden knee from the Veteran Ranger knocked all of the air out of her chest, and she fell to the shattered concrete, gasping.

With a hurl, she unloaded just about half of the whiskey she drank that night onto the ground.

"You..."

"I won't die here…" Cass muttered to herself. "I can't…"

Through the fog of pain, she saw her shotgun lying on the ground, a few feet away from her. One of the shells had fallen out, but the other was still sitting there in the breech action.

One shot.

She reached for it.

And then a black armored boot slammed down on her hand. She didn't even have the wind in her lungs cry out in pain anymore.

"I'm sorry..."

Then the boot slammed down onto the back of her head, and darkness took her.


End file.
